By Sanjay Gupta, MD
304 pages; Grand Central

Let me let you in on a little secret: When the heart stops beating, it's not the end. If you can read that sentence and not devour the rest of Cheating Death, by neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, you're probably not breathing. Gupta tells of death-defying treatments like therapeutic hypothermia, often as simple as wrapping a patient in sheets dipped in ice water—not standard practice in the United States, because commonsense solutions are harder to sell than pricey wonder pills. Behind Gupta's stories of ways to jump-start life—including a radical revisiting of CPR—is his conviction that dying may be natural, but it's also natural to resist it with all your might.

— Cathleen Medwick