The Book Recommendation

If you follow this blog, and you are a human being (based on double-digit traffic numbers, I suspect that some of the 2,000+ followers are bots, spiders or other web crawlers), I have to recommend a book: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.  He is a surgeon in Boston, well-known writer about all things medical, and has turned his mind to the issue of death and dying.  I tore through this book in a day.  Then the next day, I read it again.

It captures so many of my thoughts about what I hope and wish for my father.  As a Sandwich Generation dad, it also made me think about how I will someday talk to my children about what I wish for and what fears they will be harboring.  At least, I hope I get to have that conversation with them on my own terms.

I’m not going to clog up a blog post with a review of the book; others more capable than I have written those already.  So instead I will leave it with this: if you have an elderly parent, drop what you are reading (unless it’s ‘The Martian’ – in that case, finish it and read this one next) and pick this up instead.  Then pick it up again.