Not Dead Yet: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Dr.Robert Buckman

"In case you were wondering, the title of this book is taken from a brief telephone conversation I had in 1980 with a man in the Contracts Department of the radio section of the British Broadcasting Corporation.\nHaving recovered -- eventually and partially -- from dermatomyositis, I picked up the threads of my performing career with a radio series that had been arranged before I became ill. The man in the Contracts Department was terribly apologetic. 'I'm sorry I didn't get the contracts to you,' he said, 'I thought you were dead.' I was mildly surprised -- mostly that an event as minor as a death could affect the stately progress of BBC paperwork. 'Um, ... well ...,' I said, not wishing to overstate my case, 'not yet.' The paperwork arrived two days later."\nDr. Robert Buckman is well known on both sides of the Atlantic as a television presenter of medical topics, a best-selling author, a cancer physician and (occasionally) an entertainer. In this unusual autobiography, he tells the story of his life so far; as an exceptionally small child, a young physician, a performer (appearing on stage with the Monty Python crew), columnist, and author. What makes this book even more intriguing is that he has also been a patient -- suffering a near-fatal auto-immune disease in 1979 and an inflammation of the spinal cord ten years later which has left him partially paralyzed.\nIn these pages, Dr. Buckman deals unflinchingly with medicine, health, theatre, sex, love, television, alcohol, money, telephones, flatulence, filing systems and a few other minor details of modern life. Not Dead Yet is often funny, sometimes hilarious, occasionally serious and always engaging.