List of Books
Difficult aging in place conversations
Tara Ballman (Author), Ronnie Genser (Author) & more.
Difficult Aging in Place Conversations helps you facilitate discussions covering topics in all five pillars of aging: housing, health and wellness, finance, transportation, and social interactions.
*End of Life Issues
*Transportation and Travel
*Medical Situations
*Housing and Accessibility Decisions
*Cultural Considerations, Family Issues, and Privacy
Aging-in-place experts share their knowledge, offer discussion tips on a variety of topics, and provide conversation starters to help the dialog flow in a constructive manner.
https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Aging-Place-Conversations-Industry-ebook/dp/B0CKLZT9DC
In Love
Amy Bloow
NY Times review of this novelist’s powerful memoir about marriage and assisted death. Amy Bloom and Brian Ameche were a handsome couple. I know this not because there’s a photograph of them in Bloom’s new memoir, “In Love,” about his Alzheimer’s and their search for a painless and dignified way for him to end his life. There isn’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/books/review-in-love-memoir-amy-bloom.html
NPR interview of author, Amy Bloom on her new memoir, “In Love.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/08/1084912553/alzheimers-assisted-suicide-amy-bloom-in-lov
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Atul Gawande
In Being Mortal, the author, an American surgeon, using personal reflections and stories addresses end of life care and hospice care, and suggests that medical care should focus on well-being rather than survival. It is a personal meditation by a physician on how we can better live with age-related frailty and serious or terminal illness.
http://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/
Podcast with D. Gawande and Krista Tippett, On Being
https://onbeing.org/programs/atul-gawande-what-matters-in-the-end/
Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking
Timothy e. Quill, Paul T. Menzel, Thaddeus Pope, and Judith K. Schwartz
This book by leading experts in the field describes a practical way for a seriously ill patient to hasten their death without breaking the law. It delves into the clinical, ethical, legal, and policy questions around VSED through contributions by medical, legal, and bioethics experts.
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi
This book follows the author, a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with cancer at the age 36. The book chronicles his change in perspective after his diagnosis as he tries to find meaning in life, come to terms with his new reality, deal with his transition from doctor to patient, and approach death with grace.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/258507/when-breath-becomes-air-by-paul-kalanithi/
Scripting Death, Stories of Assisted Dying in America
Mara Buchbinder
In this book, the author and award-winning medical anthropologist Mara Buchbinder brings to the forefront previously hidden narratives about assisted dying. Her work chronicles two years of research documenting the implementation of Vermont’s 2013 Patient Choice and Control at the End of Life Act. The book offers an unprecedented, in-depth account of how patients, caregivers, and health care providers navigate assisted death in the aftermath of legalization and explores the cultural power of assisted death in the United States today, explains how medical aid in dying works, and what motivates people to pursue it.
Let’s Talk About Death (Over Dinner)
Michael Hebb
This book presents methods to help family and friends have the difficult conversation about death and dying. It covers a range of topics such as planning for death, how the death of someone affects others, and how to have a conversation about death and dying without having it become a dark and uneasy topic.
Death Over Dinner, the Organization
https://deathoverdinner.org/
On Death and Dying
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Swiss-American psychiatrist and pioneer of studies on dying people, Kübler-Ross wrote “On Death and Dying,” the 1969 book in which she proposed the patient-focused, death-adjustment pattern, the “Five Stages of Grief.” Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Dying-Doctors-Nurses-Families/dp/1476775540
No Place for Dying: Hospitals and the Ideology of Rescue
Dr. Helen Stanton Chapple
In this book, Dr. Chapple gives a critical analysis of the culture of hospital care for the dying. She interviewed clinicians of over 200 patients who had died and presents an argument for the need to change the culture of dying in the US. She describes a culture that supports the belief that hospitals rescue us from dying. She posits that rescue is the gold standard of acute care in the US, putting hospitals in a “battle with death,” which impacts how we die in hospitals.
This is Assisted Dying: A Doctor’s Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life
Dr. Stephanie Greene
A transformative and compassionate memoir by a leading pioneer in medically assisted dying who began her career in the maternity ward and now helps patients who are suffering explore and then fulfill their end of life choices.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-Assisted-Dying/Stefanie-Green/9781982129460
The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted dying in America
Anita Hannig
In this groundbreaking book, award-winning cultural anthropologist Anita Hannig brings us into the lives of ordinary Americans going to extraordinary lengths to set the terms of their own deaths. Faced with a terminal diagnosis and unbearable suffering, they decide to seek medical assistance in dying-a legal option now available to one in five Americans.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60049471-the-day-i-die
The Other Talk
AARP
It was a rite of passage for you to have the Talk with your kids about the beginning of life (as in the birds and the bees). As you get older, though, you need to have the Other Talk — that is, about the end of life. And you need to have it now, not after a crisis hits.
Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life
Dr. Jessica Nutik Zitter, MD
For readers of Being Mortal and Modern Death, an ICU and Palliative Care specialist offers a framework for a better way to exit life that will change our medical culture at the deepest level.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530276/extreme-measures-by-jessica-nutik-zitter-md/
When My Time Comes: Conversations About Whether Those Who Are Dying Should Have the Right to Determine When Life Should End
Diane Rehm
From Diane Rehm, renowned radio host – one of the most trusted voices in the nation – and best-selling author: a book of candor and compassion, addressing the urgent, hotly contested cause of the Right-to-Die movement, of which she is one of the most inspiring champions.
Finish Strong: Putting Your Priorities First at Life’s End
Barbara Coombs Lee
President Emerita/Senior Advisor of Compassion & Choices, Barbara Coombs Lee has provided a guide for the healthcare consumer to achieving a death-positive experience. It covers tough issues around aging and dying and reflects her own conviction “that individuals can be empowered to chart a course for themselves and loved ones that reduces suffering and reflects their personal values and beliefs.”
Alone and Invisible No More: How Grassroots Community Action and 21st Century Technologies Can Empower Elders to Stay in Their Homes and Lead Healthier, Happier Lives
Dr. Allan S. Teel, MD
Dr. Teel describes how to overhaul our eldercare system. Based on his own efforts to create humane, affordable alternatives in Maine, Teel’s program harnesses both staff and volunteers to help people remain in their homes and communities. It offers assistance with everyday challenges, uses technology to keep older people connected to each other and their families, and stay safe.
How we Die, Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter
Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, MD
National Book Award Winner, National Best-seller, the definitive resource on perhaps the most universal human concern: death. Even more relevant than when it was first published, this edition addresses contemporary issues in end-of-life care and includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus. How We Die also discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122995/how-we-die-by-sherwin-b-nuland/
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Caitlin Doughty
“Morbid and illuminating” (Entertainment Weekly) – a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession.
Reimagining Death
Lucinda Herring
Funeral director Lucinda Herring offers learnings on such alternatives in Reimagining Death, an essential guide for any listener considering a more conscious approach to dying. From green burials and human composting to home funeral vigils, Herring offers paradigm-shifting advice on how to look beyond the traditional funeral industry for options that signify a return to the Earth.
All The Living And The Dead
Hayley Campbell
Hayley Campbell’s latest release takes a hands-on approach to dissecting the colliding traditions that make death both a cultural obsession and taboo.”
The Art of Dying Well
Katy Butler
An inspiring, informative, and practical guide to navigating end-of-life issues, by a groundbreaking expert in the field and the New York Times best-selling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door.
With The End in Mind
Kathryn Mannix
For listeners of Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi, a palliative care doctor’s breathtaking stories from 30 years spent caring for the dying.
Die Wise
Stephen Jenkinson
Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the discussion and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever.
Stiff
Mary Roach
The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.
Advise for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)
Sallie Tisdale
So, you’ve come to terms with your mortality, and you’re ready to get started on preparing advanced care and end-of-life directives. Where does one even begin? Sans spiritual philosophy or meditative musings, this practical, cheekily-named guide gives listeners a step-by-step checklist of preparing for your own death and the deaths of those you love.
Staring At The Sun
Irvin D. Yalom
At 74, Yalom has penned a book that is the climax of his lifework, focusing on the universal human issues of mortality and death. He suggests that what he calls the “awakening experience” can help us acknowledge, accept, and utilize our fear of death in a very positive manner. Such an awakening experience can be as simple as a dream, or quick as a sudden insight. It is often a loss, a trauma, or just plain aging that can prompt an awakening experience that is a turning point for a more meaningful life. He discusses how people can make lasting changes in their lives, rearrange their priorities, communicate more deeply with those they love, eliminate interpersonal fears of rejection, and increase a willingness to take risks for personal fulfillment and a life filled with love.
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning
Margareta Magnusson
A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life.
In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner rather than later, before others have to do it for you.
The In-Between
Hadley Valhos, R.N.
Passionate advocate for end-of-life care and TikTok star Hadley Vlahos shares moving stories of joy, wisdom, and redemption from her patients’ final moments in this deeply personal memoir.
“This extraordinary book helps dispel fear around death and dying—revealing it to be a natural part of our soul’s evolution.”—Laura Lynne Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Signs and The Light Between Us
