The Art of Dying Well

Author: Katy Butler
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1501135473
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).

Good to Go

Author: Jo Myers
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
ISBN: 1402783760
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
One of the few things in life that’s certain is death—and here’s a realistic, practical, and even humorous book about preparing for it. From cremation ("Making an Ash of Yourself") to funeral plans (“Plan and Plot Your Own Demise”) to choosing executors and dealing with family relationships, media figure Jo Myers covers it all. It’s sure to appeal to boomers caring for aging parents and anyone else who needs help approaching this not-so-easy-to-talk-about subject.

Loving and Leaving the Good Life

Author: Helen Nearing
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603581197
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and many other bestselling books, lived together for 53 years until Scott's death at age 100. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is Helen's testimonial to their life together and to what they stood for: self-sufficiency, generosity, social justice, and peace. In 1932, after deciding it would be better to be poor in the country than in the city, Helen and Scott moved from New York Ciy to Vermont. Here they created their legendary homestead which they described in Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World, a book that has sold 250,000 copies and inspired thousands of young people to move back to the land. The Nearings moved to Maine in 1953, where they continued their hard physical work as homesteaders and their intense intellectual work promoting social justice. Thirty years later, as Scott approached his 100th birthday, he decided it was time to prepare for his death. He stopped eating, and six weeks later Helen held him and said goodbye. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is a vivid self-portrait of an independent, committed and gifted woman. It is also an eloquent statement of what it means to grow old and to face death quietly, peacefully, and in control. At 88, Helen seems content to be nearing the end of her good life. As she puts it, "To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life's rewards. There seems never an end to the loving that goes on forever and ever. Loving and leaving are part of living." Helen's death in 1995 at the age of 92 marks the end of an era. Yet as Helen writes in her remarkable memoir, "When one door closes, another opens." As we search for a new understanding of the relationships between death and life, this book provides profound insights into the question of how we age and die.

The Good Life

Author: Susan Kietzman
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 0758281331
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 435

Book Description
Between workouts, charity events, and shopping, Ann Barons keeps her days as full as her walk-in closets. She shares an immaculate house with her CEO husband, Mike, and their two teenagers, Nate and Lauren. It's a luxurious life, far from her homespun childhood on a farm in eastern Pennsylvania. . .which is why Ann is wary when her elderly parents ask to move in temporarily. Ann prepares in the way she knows best--hiring decorators and employing a full-time nurse for her dementia-stricken father. But nothing can prepare her for the transformations ahead. Soon, her mother Eileen is popping in to prepare soups and roasts in Ann's underused kitchen, while the usually surly Nate forms an alliance with his ailing grandfather. Lauren blossoms under Eileen's guidance, and even workaholic Mike finds time to attend high-school football games. But it's Ann who must make the biggest leap, and confront the choices and values that have kept her floating on life's surface for so long. Timely, poignant, and wise, The Good Life is a deeply satisfying and beautifully written story about the complex relationships between parents and children--and the gap that often lies between what we seek, and what will truly make us whole. "The moving story of a family's rebirth through the simple but profound acts of daily kindness and sacrifice." –Holly Chamberlin, author of Last Summer Susan Kietzman is a Connecticut native. She has a bachelor's degree in English from Connecticut College and a master's degree in journalism from Boston University. She has worked in both magazine and newspaper publishing and currently writes grants for the Mystic Seaport Museum. The Good Life is her first novel. She lives with her family in Mystic, CT.

How to Live a Good Life

Author: Jonathan Fields
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401946321
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
Seriously . . . another book that tells you how to live a good life? Don’t we have enough of those? You’d think so. Yet, more people than ever are walking through life disconnected, disengaged, dissatisfied, mired in regret, declining health, and a near maniacal state of gut-wrenching autopilot busyness. Whatever is out there isn’t getting through. We don’t know who to trust. We don’t know what’s real and what’s fantasy. We don’t know how and where to begin and we don’t want to wade through another minute of advice that gives us hope, then saps our time and leaves us empty. How to Live a Good Life is your antidote; a practical and provocative modern-day manual for the pursuit of a life well lived. No need for blind faith or surrender of intelligence; everything you’ll discover is immediately actionable and subject to validation through your own experience. Drawn from the intersection of science, spirituality, and the author’s years-long quest to learn at the feet of masters from nearly every tradition and walk of life, this book offers a simple yet powerful model, the “Good Life Buckets ” —spend 30 days filling your buckets and reclaiming your life. Each day will bring a new, practical yet powerful idea, along with a specific exploration designed to rekindle deep, loving, and compassionate relationships; cultivate vitality, radiance, and graceful ease; and leave you feeling lit up by the way you contribute to the world, like you’re doing the work you were put on the planet to do. How to Live a Good Life is not just a book to be read; it’s a path to possibility, to be walked, then lived.

A Guide to the Good Life

Author: William B. Irvine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199792623
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives. In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life. Using the psychological insights and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us. Irvine looks at various Stoic techniques for attaining tranquility and shows how to put these techniques to work in our own life. As he does so, he describes his own experiences practicing Stoicism and offers valuable first-hand advice for anyone wishing to live better by following in the footsteps of these ancient philosophers. Readers learn how to minimize worry, how to let go of the past and focus our efforts on the things we can control, and how to deal with insults, grief, old age, and the distracting temptations of fame and fortune. We learn from Marcus Aurelius the importance of prizing only things of true value, and from Epictetus we learn how to be more content with what we have. Finally, A Guide to the Good Life shows readers how to become thoughtful observers of their own lives. If we watch ourselves as we go about our daily business and later reflect on what we saw, we can better identify the sources of distress and eventually avoid that pain in our life. By doing this, the Stoics thought, we can hope to attain a truly joyful life.

The Good Life

Author: Trip Lee
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 0802486754
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
Nicer car, bigger house, whatever your heart desires. Everybody wants to live The Good Life. But what happens when dreams become nightmares and the promise of freedom leads to a life of imprisonment? What happens when you discover that all that’s gold loses its glitter? Maybe the rich and famous aren’t living The Good Life. Maybe our dreams are rooted in lies. And maybe, just maybe those who have less really have more. What is The Good Life…really? In this book, titled after his acclaimed fourth album, The Good Life, Christian rap artist and author, Trip Lee, unveils what the world, the flesh and the devil promote as the ultimate and most satisfying life. He then explains what The Good Life really is: a life within our reach and yet beyond anything this world has to offer. Imagine: The Good Life.

Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Author: Bronnie Ware
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401956009
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide with translations in 29 languages. After too many years of unfulfilling work, Bronnie Ware began searching for a job with heart. Despite having no formal qualifications or previous experience in the field, she found herself working in palliative care. During the time she spent tending to those who were dying, Bronnie's life was transformed. Later, she wrote an Internet blog post, outlining the most common regrets that the people she had cared for had expressed. The post gained so much momentum that it was viewed by more than three million readers worldwide in its first year. At the request of many, Bronnie subsequently wrote a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, to share her story. Bronnie has had a colourful and diverse life. By applying the lessons of those nearing their death to her own life, she developed an understanding that it is possible for everyone, if we make the right choices, to die with peace of mind. In this revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide, with translations in 29 languages, Bronnie expresses how significant these regrets are and how we can positively address these issues while we still have the time. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying gives hope for a better world. It is a courageous, life-changing book that will leave you feeling more compassionate and inspired to live the life you are truly here to live.

A Good Death

Author: Margaret Rice
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1760871222
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Book Description
The guide to facilitate much needed conversation and provide resources for grief management and palliative care. When her own mother died, Margaret Rice realised how completely unprepared she and her family had been for the experience of companioning a loved one who is dying. So she decided to go in search of the information she couldn't find when she most needed it and write the book herself - a novice's guide to death. We live in a period of intense death denial. But what if we were to smash that taboo and ask questions we want answered, like how do we know when someone is close to dying, and how do we best care for them? What actually happens to our body when we die? How do we work with medical experts? How do we deal with the non-medical issues that will come up, such as wills, finances and even social media passwords? Is morphine used to nudge death along or is this just a myth? Where do questions about euthanasia fit in with personal, lived experience? Margaret Rice lifts the lid on the taboos that surround death, sharing practical information and compassionate advice from multiple sources to break down boundaries and offer better choices of care to suit individual needs. This is a book to help the dying and their carers feel less isolated, and help us all face death better.

Six Myths about the Good Life

Author: Joel Kupperman
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 1603843809
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
Joel Kupperman provides an engaging introduction to theories of the good life by exploring the strengths and weakness of six simple statements of what a good life should be. Drawing on classic Chinese, Indian, Greek and Roman sources, Kupperman considers the various ways in which one might think about the values that are worth aiming for, and shows that no simple account can adequately express all that a good life can be.