Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Listen to our new Playaways...

Did you know that Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library offers Playaways? These are pocket-sized mp3 players that come preloaded with a specific book. Use them with your current headphones or earbuds - batteries are included. They're perfect for bibliophiles on the go! Check out one of these new Playaways from various genres:

Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan - While living at River's Edge where she is learning to cope with her darker impulses, immortal Nastasya's ties to dark magic get in her way once again and she is pulled back into her former destructive lifestyle.
Getting Off: A Novel of Sex and Violence by Lawrence Block - After a woman begins killing her one-night stands right after sex, she thinks of all the men she bedded before her killing spree, who got away alive--and begins to murder them, too, one by one.
The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini - As the wedding day of Sarah McClure's daughter Caroline approaches, Sarah is determined that the blocks in her daughter's quilt will display a vivid pastiche of love in all its varieties.

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

Listen to our new Playaways...

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