Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: A Rainbow of Books

This week, readers in the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library's Winter Reading Club reviewed two books with the same title by different authors: True Blue by Luanne Rice (about a second chance at love in rural Connecticut) and True Blue by David Baldacci (about a disgraced ex-cop's quest to redeem his good name). For your enjoyment, here is a rainbow assortment of other books with "colorful" titles:

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman
Yellow: A Novel by Janni Visman
Little Green: A Novel by Loretta Stinson
Redemption in Indigo: A Novel by Karen Lord
Violet by Jane Feather

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

A Rainbow of Books

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