Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot....

Edward Warren has been living in Thailand for six years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But when he learns that his dad lies comatose in a hospital, gravely injured in a car accident that also involved his younger sister Cara, he quickly returns to the United States. Luke is an animal consevationist who became famous after living with a wolf pack in the Canadian wild. It's impossible for his children...

"An inspiring, informative, and practical guide to navigating end of life issues, by a groundbreaking expert in the field and the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven's Door. In the mid-1400s, an unnamed Catholic monk composed a popular self-help book called Ars Moriendi, or The Art of Dying. Written in Latin, this medieval death manual taught people how to navigate the trials of the deathbed, using simple rituals of repentance,...

"A blend of memoir and investigation of the choices we face when our terror of death collides with the technological imperatives of modern medicine"--

"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...

A palliative care doctor on the front lines of hospital care illuminates one of the most important and controversial ethical issues of our time on his quest to transform care through the end of life. It is harder to die in this country than ever before. Statistics show that the vast majority of Americans would prefer to die at home, yet many of us spend our last days fearful and in pain in a healthcare system ruled by high-tech procedures and a philosophy...

"At my job, people die," writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. Brown, a former English professor, chronicles her first year as an R.N. in medical oncology. She illuminates the unique role of nurses in health care, giving us a moving portrait of the day-to-day work nurses do: caring for the person who is ill, not just the illness itself. Brown takes us with her as she struggles to tend to her...

"There is no more universal truth in life than death. No matter who you are, it is certain that one day you will die, but the mechanics and understanding of that experience will differ greatly in today's modern age. Dr. Haider Warraich is a young and brilliant new voice in the conversation about death and dying started by Dr. Sherwin Nuland's classic How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, and Atul Gawande's recent sensation, Being Mortal:...