Washoe County Library System

Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Gawande asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

"The first ever practical, compassionate, and comprehensive guide to dying--and living fully until you do. "There is nothing wrong with you for dying," palliative care doctor BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger write in A Beginner's Guide to the End. "Our ultimate purpose here isn't so much to help you die as it is to free up as much life as possible until you do." Theirs is a clear-eyed and big-hearted action plan for approaching the end of life, written...

Advanced directives and living wills have improved our ability to dictate end-of-life care, but even these cannot guarantee us the dignity of a natural death. Designed by two sisters - one a doctor, one a lawyer - who draw on decades of experience, the five-step Compassion Protocol outlined here offers a simple and effective framework for leaving caretakers concrete, unambiguous, and legally binding instructions about your wishes for your last days....

For readers of Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air, the acclaimed founder of Death over Dinner offers a practical, inspiring guide to life's most difficult yet important conversation. Of the many critical conversations we will all have throughout our lifetime, few are as important as the ones discussing death--and not just the practical considerations, such as DNRs and wills, but what we fear, what we hope, and how we want to be remembered. Yet...