Until Further Notice, I am Alive

Tom Lubbock, art critic and illustrator, was the chief art critic of the Independent from 1997 until his death in 2011. After studying Philosophy and English at Cambridge, he worked as a comedy writer and critic for radio, television and newspapers appearing on BBC2's The Late Show. His art writing includes a monograph on the 19th Century engraver Thomas Bewick, pieces for the journal Modern Painters and major catalogue essays on Goya and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Great Works, an anthology of 50 essays on individual paintings, will be published in October 2011. His illustrations, mainly done in collage, appeared every Saturday on the editorial page of the Independent between 1999 and 2004, and were exhibited in 2010 at Victoria Miro to wide acclaim.

At one point in this book Tom Lubbock regrets that no "teaching how to die" is available. It is now, written and demonstrated by him. That someone should have worked his way through to accepting his own death as a part of life with such courage, intelligence and finally success, recording it with such lucidity as he went, is almost incredible and fills one with awe. So does the introduction to his book by Marian Coutts, the wife Tom loved so truly. The experience of reading Until Further Notice, I Am Alive is unforgettable, and profoundly valuable - Diana Athill This book is going to be read and quoted for centuries, for it is a rare and wonderful (and heart-breaking) thing. Scarcely ever has death been approached with such lucidity, such vivacious interest, such a passionate determination to go on sending letters home from the last borders of life and language - Francis Spufford Philosophy's big riddles get dramatised here in rich detail. Lubbock does not dwell on physical pain but he tries to track, with awesome stubbornness and lucidity, the gradual disintegration of his own speech patterns ... What gradually came on me as I read his notes and meditations was a sense that behind the witty and complicated man I very slightly knew, there stood a kind of hero of contemplation - Julian Bell, Guardian I hope that if I am ever diagnosed with a terminal illness I will remember to reread Until Further Notice, I Am Alive. It is, in its tough-minded way, truly joyous - Lynn Barber, Sunday Times Until Further Notice, I Am Alive is an account of what William Empson called 'the human practice of dying'. And nothing in Lubbock's writing indicates that he did it with any less of the humour and intellectual curiosity that he lived by ... The details are beautifully observed; the big picture is illuminated; the title is well chosen - Alexander Linklater, Observer If one sought a lesson in how to die, one could hardly do better - Jane Shilling, S