Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: dark tower

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No Film Version for Stephen King's Dark Tower

Stephen King fans looking forward to seeing the Dark Tower time-travel quest series on the big screen are in for an unpleasant surprise: Universal has pulled the plug on the project. If you're looking to get reacquainted with the storyline, however, there's always the books themselves. Here are the 7 books in order:

#1 The Gunslinger

#2 The Drawing of the Three

#3 The Waste Lands

#4 Wizard and Glass

#5 Wolves of the Calla

#6 Song of Susannah

#7 The Dark Tower

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