Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Can't get enough Hunger Games?

With the Hunger Games movie coming soon, your Community Library can't keep the Hunger Games trilogy (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) on the shelves! For those of you who hunger for additional high-quality dystopias, there are plenty of great choices out there. Try, for example, The Handmaid's Tale, in which an ultra-religious fervor ushers in a new era of misogyny; The Passage, in which a military experiment goes chillingly wrong, and The Leftovers, in which a Rapture-like event mysteriously causes some people to disappear. 1Q84, whose storyline is a nod to Orwell's classic dystopia 1984, is a bestseller in its native Japan; its English translation is on track to earn similar success. Share your favorite dystopias by commenting!

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Can't get enough Hunger Games?

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