People who had stopped reading Art Buchwald’s genially cornball but predictable column in the Post were in for a surprise if they happened to look at it on March 7. “Dear Reader,” it began, “I am writing this article from a hospice. But being in the hospice didn’t work out exactly the way I wanted it to. By all rights I should have finished my time here five or six weeks ago . . . .”

That column was followed by a series of surprisingly moving, intimate, and funny dispatches about the end of life—Buchwald, who has kidney disease, had had a leg amputated and declined dialysis. Then the most surprising thing happened: His health improved, he left hospice, and he’s back writing from home.

Buchwald’s new book, Too Soon to Say Goodbye, expands on his hospice experience and his life. It’s filled with sweet stories and shameless name-dropping—and now nothing sounds better than his corny one-liners.