What is the purpose of empathy? Why do we feel another's pain and what happens to us when we do? This debut collection of thought-provoking essays blends an abundance of biological facts, literary and historical references, and deeply felt personal experience as it engrossingly explores how and why we relate to someone else's suffering.

Imagining themselves into the pain of others is what Jamison and the other "medical actors" in the opening essay must do, "playing sick" so that medical students can guess their maladies and be examined on them. These "empathy exams" trigger wider comment about how each of us throughout life interprets others' pain. But what is the price we pay for absorbing the suffering of others? Or is it valuable – indeed necessary – for us to do so?

The author fiercely and fascinatingly probes her own experiences, including an abortion, heart surgery, and being mugged. Drawing on Susan Sontag's exploration of the "kingdom of the well" and the "kingdom of the sick", she is most moving when depicting the frailty and strength of the human body.

A particularly vivid essay recounts a trip to the borderland of Mexico. Jamison is excellent at examining not only the physical borders between countries but the emotional boundaries between people, and the point at which one person's suffering crosses over to another. She achieves an engaging style in which anecdote and analysis are finely balanced, demonstrating how language can spark empathy in the reader; the power of words to bring us deep into another's world, another's wound.