The Price of Life: In Search of What We're Worth and Wh… (2025)

Tom Mooney

783 reviews280 followers

April 1, 2024

Really enjoyed this spiky and uncomfortable work of journalism/essays.

Francis Pellow

660 reviews6 followers

April 15, 2024

A fascinating Radio Four book of the week. Definitely want to read the unabridged version.
*Even better as unabridged book*

Priya Bhandari

1 review1 follower

March 24, 2024

Insightful, fascinating and written with humanity! Once I started reading this book, I found it very hard to put down because it took me on an incredible journey across the world, delving into topics I'd never thought about and questions I'd never asked. Kleeman has a unique way of bringing people to the forefront, telling their stories in vivid detail, and shining a light on their experiences. This is all done with her trademark wit weaved in throughout.

Izzy

504 reviews16 followers

March 25, 2024

3.5

    own-a-copy

Kim

112 reviews

April 20, 2024

FYI if you’re looking for a straight answer to the question: “what’s the price of life?” This is not the book for you.

However, if you are willing to think about uncomfortable topics that, whether we like it or not, affect our lives (or death) then this is perfect.

Kleeman manages to ask (what’s some would say) unbearable questions and still stay respectful.

As you read this book Kleeman’s experiences become your own. From the cringe, almost unbearable, feeling you get when you start this book to a feeling of being more, if not comfortable, then acceptant of the thought exercise. She also manages to lighten up the atmosphere at times, which seriously facilitate the reading.

Brilliant piece of investigative journalism.

Debumere

595 reviews10 followers

February 12, 2024

Jenny Kleeman covers important bases in this book and explains, for example, how the Government puts a price on your life. The first chapter started with a topic most would be interested to read - 'Taking a Life' - about hitmen. . Chapter two followed with the world's most expensive weapons and, whilst this might sound boring, it was very intriguing. Fighter Jets - F35 - what they are built for and the costs really opened my eyes. Governmental spending on F35s is mind blowing and, like Jenny, I couldn't see how the cost - money and lives lost - could ever be justified. I really enjoyed reading through the chapters, how the Government sets compensation costs for injury - there is a very detailed list available, on people who faked their own deaths but my favourite was Ch. 7 - Silicon Valley Philanthropy. 'Effective altruism' was really something else - how giving must make sense using quite harsh numerical data. I won't say any more but I appreciated Jenny's straight thinking/talking, asking questions many of us would have. I'd recommend this for anyone to read because I know many of us often wonder how the Govt. agrees on spend and how, at the end of the day, they agree it using cold hard logic.

Thanks to #Netgalley and #PanMacmillan for this ARC.

Julie Hudson

566 reviews1 follower

April 3, 2024

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jenny Kleeman and thoroughly enjoyed our discussion based on the topics raised in this books.

Fascinating chapters on how a financial figure is attached to different aspects of life, death, health and birth and it highlights how unjust it can sometimes be.

The most interesting and thought provoking parts were about the effective altruists who donate their billions in the most pragmatic way, taking all emotion out of their decisions by calculating who will benefit most from their donation by the amount of lives saved ... leading to them tripping over the homeless and destitute sprawled around their local streets to give their cash to eight year old children in Africa as they can save more lives that way.

It was also very enlightening to hear about the London Bridge terrorist attack where a van driven by terrorists ploughed into and killed two pedestrians and another four victims were stabbed to death by the men. The people hit by the van got substantially more compensation because an insurance claim could be made against the company Hertz who hired out the van.

And finally I found the chapter on how the NHS and how decisions are made about what drugs are covered very interesting. Some staggering figures about a drug that costs £2m for a single shot which stops a degenerative disease in its tracks that is made by Novartis. The CEO of Novartis says that it is £2m because it is a fair price compared to the cost of caring for a person with the disease for the rest of their life. However, there doesn't seem to be any consideration of the actual cost of making the drug, it's all calculated on the value of the life. I read elsewhere about Bristol Myers pharmaceutical co putting a 23,000% mark up on one of their drugs. What sort of profits are these drug co's making and how much money could be saved by the NHS if these outrageous costs of drugs were questioned.

So yes, lots of food for thought, thoroughly recommend.

Meg

234 reviews2 followers

July 26, 2024

--------------------------------
"If doing good for humanity means rejecting our humanity, what good can it be?"

Ro J

16 reviews

September 29, 2024

Fascinating! Contains so many nerdy details I thoroughly enjoyed and never would have thought to look for before!

Sarah

1,126 reviews4 followers

January 20, 2024

I thought the premise of "The Price of Life" sounded really interesting, but, unfortunately, it was rather disappointing.
The author was really judgmental and probably the least objective non-fiction author I've have read a book by.
The subject matters of the different chapters were generally interesting and I would have liked to learn more about them, but the author pushed her opinion so hard that it kind of took away from the content for me.

    non-fiction

Grant

9 reviews

June 24, 2024

I breezed through this look at the different ways human lives are valued in different contexts, and my review headline is: this is the type of book you're going to want to talk to your friends about. There are a number of unbelievable, jaw-dropping interviews and stories within, and Jenny Kleeman has done some fantastic research into some dark corners of the world/capitalism to uncover e.g. how much a hitman charges for a hit, how healthcare systems decide how much they're willing to spend on life-saving treatment, and how pirates negotiate a ransom. Many of these folks were not at all keen to talk to her, but Kleeman takes them all on and often holds them to task - how uncomfortable some of her interview subjects clearly are discussing their own work leaps off the page. There are a number of genuinely fascinating characters you'll meet, from the American cadaver dealer who insists that he not be called a "body broker" to the retired parsley farmer tasked with negotiating his sister's release from Somali pirates.

That said, I have some frustrations. Kleeman often lays out half a moral stance, without exploring it deeply. This is a book of popular journalism, not an academic or philosophical tome, and the lack of depth sometimes left me frustrated. This was especially so in her chapter about the effective altruists of San Francisco, whom she seems personally convinced are morally wrong for ignoring poverty on their doorstep and focusing on more "effective" philanthropy in Africa. I think this is a defensible position, but she does very little to defend it, and speaks to nobody who articulates a clear opposing view. This problem repeats in several chapters where Kleeman holds the "opposing view" of her main interviewee, but does not interview anyone on her side, nor clearly lay out her own position - so you feel like you're getting 1.5 sides of a debate instead of a full 2. The weapons chapter is another example: she tries to speak Lockheed Martin about the cost of expensive fighter jets to attempt to determine how much the death of one enemy combatant costs the military, discovers a figure which she finds personally repulsive, but makes no coherent argument about military spending, nor does she speak to anyone opposed to the program.

A beach read this isn't, but it's a propelling, interesting look at a subject that's long interested me and I certainly learned a lot about a number of industries that usually prefer to stay in the shadows. Recommended - you'll just have to draw your own conclusions about some of the ethics presented!

Archie Hamerton

135 reviews

May 12, 2024

There is something totally thrilling about Kleeman's journalism. Her book is emotive, impassioned, but unafraid of peeling the curtain back, unembarrassed by the taboo shadiness around the subject of life, death, and the money associated with moving from the former to the latter; indeed. Kleeman highlights just how this uncertainty and inability to talk about the real monetary values ascribed to death perpetuate the systemic shadiness surrounding it--the unrevealed statistics of casualties of war and military operations, for example, or the numbers of a hitman's fatalities possibly bloated by macabre bravado and bragging rights. Early on, Kleeman states that she is not a numbers person, something that is not to the book's detriment. In fact, it's why 'The Price of Life' reads so well, her frank discussions with each chapter's subjects (ranging from trafficked domestic slaves to wealthy families of ransomed relatives) humanising the statistics, and treating an otherwise uncomfortable subject with humanity, kindness, but a certain refreshing candour.

Kleeman's approach is enlightening, engaging, and didactic without ever being forceful--though one is left wishing she could perhaps be a little more political in her writing, a little less keen to leave the topics so open to the reader. For example, the uneasy and unsurprising political pertinence of the body broker, commodifying and carving up the literal human body into its value and worth, who is also a Republican Party nominee could have been stressed more, in an age in which certain political platforms are formed purely on the grounds of disenfranchising persons due to the material 'uses; of their organs. Likewise, the glossy photo-ops and factory tours of Lockheed Martin factories--in which the Disneyland effect seems to stretch even to defence contractors--is gestured to at the start of one chapter, but one feels as though in light of current events such poor taste posturing ought to be spoken about with greater condemnation and clarity.

    non-fiction

Amelie van der Ploeg

24 reviews3 followers

August 13, 2024

“The Price of Life” offers a gentle introduction to the hidden processes behind how human life is monetarily valued- directly and indirectly.

I picked up this book as part of an Economist book club recommendation. Coincidentally, the Value of a Statistical Life is a key topic for me at work right now, so many of the concepts Kleeman discusses were already familiar to me.

Additionally, her clear disdain for economists was a bit off-putting—I promise, we’re not all as heartless as she suggests! I think this book would have justified a higher school if she hadn’t written the parts associated with economists with such a strong negative preconception. Though it’s understandable that people view us boiling down complicated and multifaceted aspects of life into numbers… when there’s finite money to spend and invite problems to solve, we need a clear cut shortlisting process! That isn’t to say that it cannot be very flawed, and Kleeman does point out the hypocrisy in cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratio decision making. But perhaps me reading this with my economist-hat on wasn’t the intended audience!

Despite everything above, I did find it to be an insightful read, particularly the chapters on kidnapping ransoms and cadaver brokerage. This book would be ideal for those interested in understanding how these type of complex decisions are made - and warrant a much higher rating! That said, if you’re one of the decision-makers involved in these processes, you might not find it as useful or eye-opening.

Nicholas

263 reviews9 followers

April 13, 2024

3.5 Stars // The cost(s) of living

An interesting piece of investigative journalism, that has some very gripping chapters (usually those around murder and the loss of life), whereas others felt a bit too shoehorned in, just to fit under the ‘Price of life’ umbrella term (namely the one about Lockheed Martin, which had no real take-aways).

In the end, I think I wished for a bit more of a philosophical approach to the topic as well, or at least chapter dedicated to the non-numeric values of life - as a counter weight. The author very much focuses on concrete numbers surrounding life - whether that’s giving or taking it - but it all stays very factual, researched and evidence-based, so to speak. The ‘price of life’ is, of course, a much discussed topic in ethics and philosophy with a lot of other books dedicated to it - but to leave such a take completely out of the book is in my mind a missed opportunity.

Altogether an interesting read with more highs than lows. Whatever you learn in here might make for the best, cheerful opener on your next cocktail party but will let you ponder about the numeric values be put on life as a society.

Harriet

623 reviews4 followers

May 5, 2024

This was such an interesting book, looking into the price of life according to many different factors. Each chapter looks at something different and some of the best ones for me were: criminal injury compensation (specifically focused on victims of terrorism), the cost of IVF and the cost of life insurance.
A couple of the chapters seemed less relevant, like the one about the weapons system and F-35 planes, which I didn't enjoy and felt out of place (which was a shame because it was only the second chapter) and the one about Covid.
I enjoyed the investigative style, but did find that the author seemed overly critical of lots of things that the interviewees said, and made some quite sarcastic and snippy comments about some of them that seemed unnecessarily rude,
However, I did enjoy this book overall and found it very informative about the cost of life.

Carolyn Drake

765 reviews13 followers

June 25, 2024

Kleeman's interesting book tackles a subject human beings tend to shy away from: the cost, in monetary terms, of a life. From NHS NICE guidelines ('measuring' the relative values of medication in 'Quality Adjusted Life Years') to how much it costs per life taken by the world's best-selling fighter jet, Kleeman tries to come up with figures, and the moral questions raised when we use these figures. There are several genuinely shocking revelations here: did you know the families of victims who died from being stabbed in a London Bridge terrorist attack were only entitled to a small aount of statutory compensation, but those mowed down by the van the terrorists hired and drove into them -during the same attack - received millions because the rental company's insurance could pay out?
A diverting read.

Alison

848 reviews271 followers

June 24, 2024

I quite enjoyed this book, the audio also read by the author, though in some degree, it is also a little scary. What do we really consider a life is 'worth'? A body? A family member vs a stranger? And who actually decides this? Jenny did some research, interviews, and tried to find out the answers to these questions, if for the most part, concrete answers weren't really forthcoming. Some really interesting bios and stories, from everything from a hit man to covid to slavery. Some very interesting 'questions' about what people really consider how much we as 'people' are worth. A book to make you both think, and squirm.

Kanako Okiron

Author1 book17 followers

June 17, 2024

This book…was nothing like I expected. I mean, what did I think it was going to be about? Now that I have read it. But it was a wild read, mostly depressing. But I would not put a trigger warning in front of this book unless you’ve been a victim of a race hate crime, a terrorist attack, or a mafia hit-and-run. Otherwise, it is a necessary read for all of us. One in which I had to ask my dad if the price we pay for life is really hidden in the Australian taxpayer. I certainly wouldn’t put it as “a thrilling adventure…funny, moving, brilliant.”

Dropbear123

316 reviews13 followers

October 2, 2024

4.5/5 rounding down for Goodreads

Covers the price of a life in various different ways - taking a life (hitmen, military technology costs, cost of a murder), the creation of life (IVF), the cost of preserving a life, the cost of a living person (ransoms and modern slavery), and the cost of a corpse. The tone is pretty easygoing in terms of readibilty despite the topic and it is easy to jump in and out of.

My only complaint is that I wanted the book to be a bit more statistic focused and analytical rather than focusing on individual's stories.

    21st-century politics

Debby Binns

309 reviews1 follower

March 11, 2024

I listened to this book on BBC sounds and am looking forward to listening to the author talk at an event in April. In The Price of a Life Jenny Kleeman meets many people including the families of people who have been murdered to expose the horrors and absurdities of how we calculate the incalculable. Her book is clear-eyed and humane. Sometimes we must assign monetary value to life, if only to distribute limited resources fairly.

Mateus Oazem

6 reviews

April 8, 2024

I would rate it a solid 4.5, in the absence of this rating: it’s a flawed 5.

Flawed in the sense that it’s sometimes too carried on what the journalist thinks about the subject, her bias and world views. But it doesn’t take the reader out of this amazing discovery journey. It’s just a really personally filtered journalistic piece, and I loved it.

It has inspired myself on how to approach the future in the speculative works I do. Great to have been found by this book.

Lucille

34 reviews

September 1, 2024

I’m feeling generous today which is why I gave this book a 4 instead of a 3. It’s more a 3.5. It was definitely interesting in bits, I just feel like the actual ‘price of life’ component wasn’t well explained and I don’t think that the Lockheed Martin F-35 story was a good one to start so early with. I found the chapters on modern slavery, NICE health economics, and criminal injury compensation the most interesting.

Kaila

760 reviews13 followers

April 24, 2024

3.5/5 stars

While this is a very thought-provoking and in-depth book, the author’s ongoing inclination to interview people just so she can oppose and borderline-mock them is a bit distracting for me.

    2024 non-fiction social-science

Abigail Rickard

77 reviews

March 9, 2024

Some chapters were stronger then others.
(Read proof)

Johnny Treasure

4 reviews1 follower

May 31, 2024

Almost like a collection of short stories, the link between them sometimes feels a little tenuous but it’s so well written that it doesn’t really matter

Ian

589 reviews12 followers

June 17, 2024

Interesting, but factual without any real philosophical or sociological contextualisation or discussion of the issues raised by the 'valuations'.

Morgan Holdsworth

187 reviews

July 15, 2024

informative & enjoyable!

Enya

651 reviews45 followers

August 29, 2024

Fascinating read!

    non-fiction

Matt Bayliss

9 reviews

October 8, 2024

3.5 stars, really it’s a collection of articles but it’s well written and interesting subject

Reader

41 reviews

October 30, 2024

Interesting

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