Flowers to Soften the “Dread of Decline”

This quote is from American Ghost, in which journalist Hannah Nordhaus explores her family history, starting with an ancestor rumored to be haunting a Santa

Oliver Sacks on Writing (Why Use One Adjective When Six Could Apply?)

In On the Move: A Life, Oliver Sacks’s recently published memoir, we become better acquainted with the complicated human being whose popular case studies have

Can We Trust Harper Lee’s New Watchman? (Can She?)

UPDATE (3/15/15): Via Huffington Post, “On Thursday, the Alabama Securities Commission said it had closed its investigation into an unspecified complaint of elder abuse, first

What A Pity To Learn How To Live So Late

Now that I’ve thoroughly depressed everyone with my post on Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, I’ve asked my other

Remaining The Writer of Our Own Story At Life’s End

In Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande draws attention to an issue that most of us try to avoid: how

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (If You’re Unlucky?)

There’s no better time of year to read a book about death—and America’s stubborn unpreparedness to care for its aging population— than fall. As John