Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: An Ocean of Stories

This morning, NPR reviewed the newly-published biography telling the story of an usually capricious, sometimes dangerous, but always beautiful entity: the Atlantic Ocean. In his new book Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, bestselling author Simon Winchester blends history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, and science and exposition to relate the saga of the Atlantic Ocean. Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Library's copy of this book has just arrived on the shelf in the New Books section: be the first to check it out!

And if this book sparks your interest, you might also want to try the nonfictional work Deep Atlantic: Life, Death, and Exploration in the Abyss, or Buried at Sea, the fast-paced fictional account of a young man whose enigmatic employer leads him into a dangerous chase across the length and breadth of the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

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

An Ocean of Stories

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