Today, I'm sharing two quotes I like

Henry David Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  That's something we need to think about to really understand.  Hundreds of people may look at exactly the same thing I am noticing today, but what we truly SEE makes a big difference.  Ponder that a bit, and tell me what you think.

I should type this one out, in case the photo ever disappears, shouldn't I?  You can also see what I wrote about Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (published in 2014), HERE:

"We've been wrong about what our job is in medicine.  We think our job is to ensure health and survival.  But really it is larger than that.  It is to enable well-being.  And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive."

Anne, who blogs at "My Head Is Full of Books" (HERE), gave me the idea for this post by quoting Erma Bombeck:  "My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be."

Do you ever re-read books?

Book Blogger Hop gives bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers.  It is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.  Here is the question for this week:  May 16th - 22nd - What are some of your favorite books to re-read? (This question was submitted by Nicole, whose blog cannot be accessed.)  I'm re-reading this one right now:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End ~ by Atul Gawande, 2014, social science, 304 pages, 10/10

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Atul Gawande tackles the challenge of how medicine can not only improve life, but also the process of its ending.  Medicine has transformed birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable.  But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit:

• Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs.
• Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot.
• Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families.  He offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.  This book asserts that medicine can comfort us and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life, but also a good end.

This quote is from page 259.

Thinking about books I've read more than once

Yesterday, I noticed that three books I had checked out of the Crown Center library were books I had already read.  Yes, I do re-read books, but having that many at the same time surprised me.  I am now in the middle of re-reading Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, literally about halfway.  So I'll keep reading that one.  You can see what I wrote about it, HERE.

I also checked out Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, knowing that I had read it before.  It is a wonderful book, and I decided that it was time to read it again.  Not only have I mentioned it on this blog at least half a dozen times (as you can see HERE), but it is a book I have recommended to many readers.

The third book is March by Geraldine Brooks, which I read so long ago (the copyright date is 2005) that I had not even started blogging.  My first blog post was dated January 2007, HERE.  I will probably read each of these three books (I mean, re-read them, of course) before returning them to the library.

Two for TWOsday, both recommended by Risé

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying ~ by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, 1992, psychology, 224 pages

In this moving and compassionate classic, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years’ experience tending the terminally ill. Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts — of wisdom, faith, and love — that the dying leave for the living to share.  Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter ~ by Sherwin B. Nuland, 1995, psychology, xviii 

+ 278 pages

This National Book Award Winner and national bestseller addresses issues in end-of-life care and includes an afterword that discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.  Each of us will die in a way that is different from anyone else's death.  Behind each death is a story.  Sherwin B. Nuland (1930-2014) was a surgeon and a teacher of medicine.  In this book, he gave us portraits of the experience of dying that makes clear the choices we can make to allow us our own death.

Risé was working in the Crown Center library, so I went in to speak to her.  While we were talking, Harry came in to get a book, which they must have talked about, since she handed it to him.  It was the first book above (Final Gifts), and while we were talking, I noticed the second book (How We Die) among the nonfiction on the counter.  Risé said she recommends both books, so Harry checked out one and I checked out the other; we agreed to swap books after we finish the ones we had in hand.

** Footnote **

Two related books I've written about in the past on this blog are:

1. The Art of Dying ~ by Katy Butler (posted HERE in 2014)
2. Being Mortal ~ by Atul Gawande (posted HERE in 2019)

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Gratitude ~ by Oliver Sacks, 2015, memoir essays, 64 pages, 8/10

"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude.  I have loved and been loved.  I have been given much and I have given something in return.  Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure." — Oliver Sacks

No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks.  During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.  "It is the fate of every human being," Sacks writes, "to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death."  Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.

"Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer.  He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the 'abnormal.'  He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way — face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms.  And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw." — Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal, one of my favorite books ever.

Added Monday afternoon:  Here's a quote from the book:

"I have been increasingly conscious, for the last ten years to so, of deaths among my contemporaries.  My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself.  There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever.  When people die, they cannot be replaced" (p. 19).

This is a weekly meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, who says, "Post the books completed, the books you are currently reading, and the books you hope to finish at some point."  Nah, it's Monday, and this is what I'm reading.  Since I post nearly every day, I don't need to repeat myself, so this one book is enough for today.  Tomorrow is another day, and I'm sure I'll discuss another book or two then.

Thursday Thoughts ~ tagging some books

This "Rapid Fire Book Tag" meme was created by Kate at Girl Reading.  While I wasn’t tagged directly, Helen at Helen's Book Blog and Deb of Readerbuzz extended open invitations.

This meme is supposed to be quick bookish questions with quick bookish answers.  Fair warning:  I couldn't watch all of Kate's YouTube presentation as her constant hand waving was too distracting.  Following her YouTube video were several other young people doing "Rapid Fire Book Tag" videos, and I could not watch all of theirs, either.  I should have rearranged some of the questions because the order seemed way too random and illogical to me.  I also added reasons why I made some choices, so my answers aren't exactly quick or rapid.  On the other hand, the videos weren't rapid, either; Kate's original was 4.5 minutes, longer than it takes to read my answers below.  Other video answers ran even longer:  6 minutes, 11 minutes, 7.5 minutes, etc.  Okay, let's try it.

1.   E-book or physical book?

I prefer the physical book, unless I'm traveling.  Traveling is easier with my Kindle because I can take several books with me.

2.  Paperback or hardback?

Sometimes one, sometimes the other, according to how I'm using it.  I don't like holding heavy books when I read in bed.

3.  Online or in-store book shopping?

Online, because I can do it from home and I no longer have a car.

4.  Trilogies or series?

Neither.  I prefer stand-alone novels.  The original questions were composed by someone who apparently reads only fiction.  I read a lot of nonfiction:  memoirs, history, philosophy, theology, science.

5.  Heroes or villains?

Memoirs and nonfiction rarely have either of these.  I read for the ideas in book, not looking for heroes or villains.

6.  A book you want everyone to read?

My friends read different kinds of books, so I recommend favorites in various genres:

Social Science

• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, 2014

Fiction

• Evensong by Gail Godwin, 1999

Memoir

• Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret, 1996

Speculative Fiction (SF)

• Time and Again by Jack Finney, 1970

Theology

• The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith by Marcus J. Borg, 2003

Children's Book

• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney, 1982

YA Fiction

• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, 1962

Fiction (women's studies)

• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1915

Memoir

• The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine by Sue Monk Kidd, 1996

7.  Recommend an underrated book?

I have no idea what is "underrated."  I recommend books I consider worth reading.

8.  The last book you finished?

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868-1869  (in two parts:  Little Women in 1868 and Good Wives in 1869)

9.  The last book you bought?

Chair Yoga: Sit, Stretch, and Strengthen Your Way to a Happier, Healthier You by Kristin McGee, 2017.  I bought this exercise book for my Kindle.  I've been reading library books and books from my own shelves for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

10.  Weirdest thing you’ve used as a bookmark?

My Kindle, maybe?

11.  Used books:  Yes or No?

Sure, I was once co-owner of a bookstore selling used books.

12.  Top three favorite genres?

Literary fiction, memoirs, philosophical nonfiction

13.  Borrow or buy?

Buy, when I can.  Usually, I buy my nonfiction, but borrow fiction because I rarely re-read those.  Why waste money?  If I own a book, I can mark it up.  Or not.

14.  Characters or plot?

A novel needs both, but I especially look for interesting characters.

15.  Long or short books?

I prefer shorter novels that get into the story and keep moving.

16.  Long or short chapters?

Shorter ones, generally, though I am really tired of novels that follow different characters in alternate chapters.  That or alternating the main character in the present in one chapter and in an earlier time in the next chapter.  It's like trying to juggle two different novels at the same time.

17.  Name the first three books you think of:

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande .................... see all of
Time and Again by Jack Finney .................... these in my
The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg......... list above

18.  Books that make you laugh or cry?

Excellent books may do both.  Why should I choose?

19.  Our world or fictional worlds?

See?  The originator of this meme is thinking only of fiction.  Is it other-worldly to enjoy Jack Finney's Time and Again and travel into the past?  Or is that still "our world"?

20.  Audiobooks:  Yes or No?

No, I'm a visual person, and it's too much work to listen to an audiobook.

21.  Do you ever judge a book by its cover?

Sure, to warn me which books are too flighty to waste my time with.

22.  Book to movie or book to TV adaptations?

Not interested.

23.  A movie or TV-show you preferred to its book?

Not interested.

24.  Series or stand-alones?

Stand-alones.

I’m tagging anyone and everyone.  If you want to do this, consider yourself tagged.

Nonfiction November ~ a favorite book

This quote is from page 259.

This week, folks who are doing Nonfiction November are talking about what makes a book you've read (specifically, a nonfiction book) one of your favorites.  A book that immediately came to mind when I read what Helen posted on her blog was Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014).  I read this book in February and rated it 10 of 10 because I couldn't put it down.  I've recommended it to several people since then, both online and in person.  I notice  that I saved several quotes from it in my list of books read in 2019 (scroll down to #14), but I've never shared them in a post here on my blog.  Now's a good time to do it.

"Research has shown that loss of bone density may be a better predictor of death from atherosclerotic disease than cholesterol levels" (p. 30).

"The three primary risk factors for falling are poor balance, taking more than four prescription medications, and muscle weakness" (p. 40).

"Three Plagues of nursing home existence:  boredom, loneliness, and helplessness" (p. 116).

"Four crucial questions.  At this moment in your life ... :
1. Do you want to be resuscitated if your heart stops?
2. Do you want aggressive treatments such as intubation and mechanical ventilation?
3. Do you want antibiotics?
4. Do you want tube or intravenous feeding if you can't eat on your own?" (p. 179).

"What were her biggest fears and concerns?  What goals were most important to her?  What trade-offs was she willing to make, and what ones was she not?" (p. 234).

"For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. ... And in stories, endings matter" (pp. 238, 239).

"People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay.  They want to end their stories on their own terms" (p. 249).

The vital questions:  "What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes?   What are your fears and what are your hopes?  What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make?  And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?" (p. 259).

Why is it a favorite?  I live in a retirement center, so I see lots of elderly people daily.  One of my friends died in July, while I was in Montana.  Another died in October.  A friend who eats at my table in the dining room is in another hospital getting chemo, and a neighbor on my floor is in another hospital.  I'll be 80 in April, so end of life is on my mind, too. 

Yesterday, some of us took a survey about senior housing administered by Washington University students inquiring about what's offered, what's needed, whether we have those things here, and to what extent.  The Crown Center is for independent living, but HOW independent are we?  Do we need help dressing? taking medicine? cooking? bathing? shopping? cleaning our own apartments?

Being Mortal is a book for people ready and willing to face their own mortality, but I think it's equally important that physicians and medical people read it.  As a doctor speaking to other doctors, Gawande says they've been focused on the wrong thing:  keeping people alive, even if they are miserable and maybe tied into a wheelchair in the hallway of a nursing home.  He advocates asking people what THEY want out of what's left of their lives.  I agree wholeheartedly.

This single book is enough about nonfiction favorites for me today, but maybe I'll write about another book or two later.

If you click this link, you can read what others have written about nonfiction this week.

Beginning ~ with mortality

I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn't one of them. ... Our textbooks had almost nothing on aging or frailty or dying.  How the process unfolds, how people experience the end of their lives, and how it affects those around them seemed beside the point.  The way we saw it, and the way our professors saw it, the purpose of medical schooling was to teach how to save lives, not how to tend to their demise.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End ~ by Atul Gawande, 2014

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable.  But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.  Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced.  Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make.  Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.  He shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death, but a good life ― all the way to the very end.

As the author says in the quote shown above, I think well-being is what really matters.  I don't want to spend my dying days in a nursing home in a bed with rails that hold me in or tied into a wheelchair.  All that does is prolong my dying, not help me really live as I want to live.  Quality of life is (or should be) the desired goal.  I borrowed this book from the library three years ago, but I never got it read.  Now it's on my Kindle, and I'm ready to read it.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click this link for other book beginnings.

Library Loot ~ only one today

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End ~ by Atul Gawande, 2014

Is it medicine's job to keep us alive?  Or is it well-being that really matters?  I don't want to spend my dying days in a nursing home in a bed with rails that hold me in or tied into a wheelchair.  All that does is prolong my dying, not help me really live as I want to live.  Gawande argues that quality of life is the desired goal.  I heard about this book in one book club and plan to suggest it to my other book discussion group.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Linda @ Silly Little Mischief that encourages us to share the names of books we checked out of the library.  See what others got this week.