Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Inspired by Homer's Odyssey

After Fin's mother passes away, his older half sister, Lady, becomes his legal guardian. Fin's only memory of Fin & Lady, is a light and crisp comic romance that will especially delight readers with a soft spot for New York City.
Lady is from a trip to Capri where he and his parents went looking for Lady after she jilted her fiance. Glamorous, careless, and charismatic, Lady is an unlikely guardian for an 11 year old boy but together they set up a home in New York. Lady, obsessed with her freedom but at the same time consumed with being loved, charges Fin with the task of selecting the perfect husband. Lady is pursued by three suitors while trying to fight her daily urge to run away from her life. Cathleen Shine's latest novel,

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

Inspired by Homer's Odyssey

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