Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: september fiction

Fall is shaping up to be an exciting time for fiction. Here's a preview of some of September's hottest titles. Place your holds now!

Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz presents a collection of short stories the heartbreak and radiance of love in This is How You Lose Her.

The lives of three women on turn of the 20th century San Miguel are shaped by ambition and circumstance in T.C. Boyle's San Miguel

Lee Child is back with another Jack Reacher novel. In A Wanted Man, Reacher finds himself unwittingly involved in a massive conspiracy that makes him a threat.

The Casual Vacancy is award winning Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults. It follows the death of a small town councilman whose demise reveals deep seated conflicts in his seemingly idyllic community.

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

Big Titles This Month