had never seen a dying woman dance before,” Janie Brown writes in Radical Acts of Love – a book about her conversations and interactions with terminal cancer patients as an oncology nurse and counsellor. At a retreat – organised and led by Brown – where people with terminal cancer prepare themselves “to die with peace and acceptance”, this woman dances: “her large belly full of cancer and her laboured breathing didn’t seem to impede the ease and grace with which she swayed,” Brown writes. This story is one of 20 featured in the book, each of which centres on a different person’s unique experience of dying. Some of these people struggle with a fear of death, some are worried not for themselves but for the loved ones they will leave behind; others are consumed by regret, or rage, at what life has thrown at them, or the choices they have made. “Preparing for death is a radical act of love for ourselves, and for those close to us who live on after we’re gone,” Brown writes. The subject of dying has been in the spotlight this year, most notably in Dear Life, the memoir by palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke and Death Is But a Dream by hospice doctor Christopher Kerr. As a counsellor, Brown’s perspective is different. She tells of a woman unable as a child to attend her mother’s funeral who recreates the event during one retreat; the other attendees mourn with her. “I have a hole in my soul,” says Bella, another retreat attendee. Rediger does not tell any stories about people who became ill, avoided stress, embraced love – and still died anyway Brown’s writing can be elegant and powerful, though platitudes too often take the place of her own voice – even in a book that includes so many unique stories about death. And the experiences written about are sometimes made uniform and impersonal by an overtly spiritual tone. Yet in Radical Acts of Love people heal, make amends and discover new sides to themselves – in short, they become more alive – months, or even weeks, before death. The book reframes what it means to heal, which we usually associate with recovery and, therefore, the continuation of life. “We know how to die, just as we knew how to come into this world,” Brown writes. “We also know how to heal, and to settle our lives as best we can, before we die.” • Radical Acts of Love is published by Canongate (RRP £14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p on all online orders over £15.