Aging Dying

In the 1960s Ram Dass was a Harvard professor who turned to Eastern religion to answer the questions troubling his generation. He shared his story in the landmark classic, Be Here Now, which instantly captured the spiritual longings of his contemporaries. In Still Here, Ram Dass once again brings understanding, common sense, and reassurance for those of us facing the final season of life.

The cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project and pioneer behind the compassionate care movement shares an inspiring exploration of the lessons dying has to offer about living a fulfilling life. Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every...

The first book to validate the meaningful dreams and visions that bring comfort as death nears. Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are...

#1 New York Times Bestseller In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from...

Living in the Fly Away Zone: Life, Aging, Faith, and the Things that Matter Most Forty Meditations for Fellow Travelers (with Questions for Discussion/Reflection) The Bible tells us that our years are "seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty... then we fly away" (Psalm 90:10). Those years can be called the Fly Away Zone--a time in our life when we might (and will) fly away at any moment. The Fly Away Zone is a remarkable season of life when our horizon grows nearer, heaven becomes more real than ambition, gratitude begins to replace striving, and we discover that finishing well ...

A Columbia University physician inspires us to rethink death and offers insights on how we can learn to embrace the art of dying well in this wise, clear-eyed book that is as compelling and soulful as Being Mortal, When Breath Becomes Air, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. As a specialist in both...

This helpful and encouraging resource offers support for everyone accompanying someone at the end of life - from the moment we first learn that someone is dying through the time of death and beyond. Kirsten DeLeo shares down-to-earth advice and offers simple practices to help us handle our emotions, deal with difficult relationships, talk about what matters, listen fully, practice self-care, and work through challenging situations with presence and grace.

Born with the extraordinary power to look deep within the human heart, David Selig recklessly misuses his gift in the pursuit of pleasure, until his power begins to die and he must come to terms with what it means to be truly human. This is a fascinating portrait. Never has the experience of...

In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes readers on a quietly epic journey: ferry driver Nils Vik’s last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive. Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows...

Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional...

This program is read by Michael J. Fox. A moving account of resilience, hope, fear and mortality, and how these things resonate in our lives, by actor and advocate Michael J. Fox. The entire world knows Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, the teenage sidekick of Doc Brown in Back to the Future; as...

“Honey isn’t one of these frail wraiths who sip tea and shuffle in worn slippers. Honey subsists on Viognier and Valium and slips on Louboutins just to run to the grocery store.…a feisty heroine readers will embrace as an octogenarian with attitude to spare.” — Booklist Meet a woman as...

Aging isn’t graceful. It isn’t wise. It isn’t dignified. It’s hilarious. From Michelle Ward, author of the Cheap Therapy series, comes the ultimate survival guide for men who are discovering that their bodies now sound like bubble wrap, their mornings feel like crime scenes, and their testicles are auditioning for a bungee-jump. Inside, you’ll discover: Why socks have become an Olympic event. The truth about sneezes that feel like seismic activity. Bathroom trips that last longer than TV episodes. The betrayal of bald spots, ear hair, and rogue eyebrows. The medical circus of ...

From the author of Confessions of the Fox comes a novel in which a yenta on her deathbed gives an unrepentant account of all her failures—including her child. “A rant of comedic genius . . . [Jordy Rosenberg] writes with an enchanting command of language and satire.”—Melissa Broder, The...

With a rare combination of emotional insight, narrative power, and lyrical grace, Justin Cronin transforms the simple story of a dying man’s last wish into a rich tapestry of family love. “A work of art . . . a great American novel.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer On an evening in late summer...

"Wonderful... Physicans would do well to learn this most important lesson about caring for patients." —The New York Times Book Review Over the years that Victoria Sweet has been a physician, “healthcare” has replaced medicine, “providers” look at their laptops more than at their...

Humanity learned how to live longer. It never figured out who would care for everyone. At seventeen, Mara Ives begins her compulsory Service Year in Haven District 12, where a generation raised in the age of extreme longevity is assigned to care for citizens who may live for more than a century. She expects rules, routines and exhausting work. She doesn't expect Elias Vale. At 132, Elias is lucid, observant and impossible to reduce to the institutional category surrounding him. Through him, Mara begins seeing the difference between keeping a system functioning and actually caring for the ...

A profoundly personal investigation into the current state of eldercare and what it means to grow old in America "[Author Lucy] Schiller’s sensitive writing creates an elegiac listen that informs as well as it introspects." — Library Journal "Schiller unpacks a complicated subject with...

Marcus Lindeman had eleven fields to fill in on a succession form and could not make himself type a name into field ten. He was fifty-seven years old. He had written the AI ethics framework that half the industry taught, and he ran the largest machine on earth out of a converted control room on Three Mile Island, and at one o’clock in the morning on the fourteenth of March he asked it a question nobody had authorized him to ask. The answer came back in four hours and eleven minutes. Nine items. Six of them off a pharmacy shelf. Take them for a hundred and eighty days, then stop completely...

For readers of Being Mortal and Modern Death, an ICU and Palliative Care specialist offers a framework for a better way to exit life that will change our medical culture at the deepest level In medical school, no one teaches you how to let a patient die. Jessica Zitter became a doctor because...