10 books like Being Mortal

By Atul Gawande,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Being Mortal. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Peace Is Every Step

By Thich Nhat Hanh,

Book cover of Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

This slender book is my “bible” for inspiration as well as mindfulness. (One can’t go wrong with a book that includes a foreword by H.H. the Dalai Lama!) The first essay, “Twenty-four Brand-New Hours,” reminds me that each day affords an opportunity to bring “peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.” Thich Nhat Hanh, described in the introduction as “a cross between a cloud, a snail and a piece of heavy machinery—a true religious presence,” humbly offers simple ways to be present in the moment (the only moment we have, btw!). “We are very good at preparing to live,” the author reminds us, “but not very good at living.” The essays in Peace Is Every Step inspire me to breathe more, think less, wake up, and feel alive.   

Peace Is Every Step

By Thich Nhat Hanh,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Peace Is Every Step as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'This is a very worthwhile book. It can change individual lives and the life of our society.' The Dalai Lama

Lucidly and beautifully written, Peace is Every Step contains commentaries and meditations, personal anecdotes and stories from Nhat Hanh's experiences as a peace activist, teacher, and community leader. It begins where the reader already is - in the kitchen, office, driving a car, walking in a park - and shows how deep meditative presence is available now. Nhat Hanh provides exercises to increase our awareness of our own body and mind through conscious breathing, which can bring immediate joy and…


The Body Keeps the Score

By Bessel Van Der Kolk,

Book cover of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk explains the lifelong impact of trauma on the mind and body, then introduces various therapeutic approaches to help survivors carry the crushing weight of their past. This book is a lifeline for survivors, validating their fragmented memories and reassuring them that their trauma responses are biological necessities rather than personal failures. As a writer, I love that many of the therapeutic approaches described in the book harness the power of imagination to reprocess traumatic memories—a transformative process of healing that’s nothing short of magical.

The Body Keeps the Score

By Bessel Van Der Kolk,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked The Body Keeps the Score as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times bestseller

"Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society." -Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies

A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der…


The House of God

By Samuel Shem,

Book cover of The House of God

Though technically a work of loose fiction based on his experiences as an intern, I do not feel it is right to have a list of medical memoirs without The House of God holding down the anchor. Several decades old now, it remains the standard for the delicate space between self-disclosure in medicine and irreverence. Physician writers know it can be hard to thread that particular needle, but Shem does it so well that there is seldom a medical student who comes through training who has not picked up a copy at one point or another. 

The House of God

By Samuel Shem,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The House of God as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative novel about what it really takes to become a doctor.

"The raunchy, troubling, and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. Singularly compelling...brutally honest."-The New York Times

Struggling with grueling hours and sudden life-and-death responsibilities, Basch and his colleagues, under the leadership of their rule-breaking senior resident known only as the Fat Man, must learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings.

A phenomenon ever since it was published, The House of God was the first unvarnished, unglorified,…


When Breath Becomes Air

By Paul Kalanithi,

Book cover of When Breath Becomes Air

My mother gifted me this book after the death of my father, which was a gut-wrenching event for the entire family and which mirrored Kalanithi’s ending. It’s the only nonfiction book on my list, but a very important one. Death is the ultimate disappearance, is it not? And something we all have to come to terms with in myriad ways. This book helps prepare us for the death of others and for our own final disappearance.

When Breath Becomes Air

By Paul Kalanithi,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked When Breath Becomes Air as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER**

'Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.' Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Being Mortal

What makes life worth living in the face of death?

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live.

When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and…


When the Body Says No

By Gabor Maté,

Book cover of When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

From his years as a palliative and family physician, Dr. Maté recognizes that the physical and emotional shut-down and illness resulting from trauma or chronic stress is a natural response to overwhelming experiences. He sees beyond the standard medical model to treat his patients as whole people, not disconnected body parts or diagnoses. In this book, he shows that what medicine considers psychosomatic or imaginary is in fact a biological survival mechanism; and advocates for a compassionate and holistic approach to healing over the mechanistic medical norm. Case histories and personal insights show that unresolved trauma patterns get transferred from parent to child, down the generations to create their own patterns of illness and disease. Also, check out the film The Wisdom of Trauma about his work on addiction. 

When the Body Says No

By Gabor Maté,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked When the Body Says No as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and Alzheimer's disease? Is there such a thing as a 'cancer personality'?

Drawing on deep scientific research and Dr Gabor Mate's acclaimed clinical work, When the Body Says No provides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link - and the role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases.

When the Body Says No:

- Explores the role of the mind-body link in conditions and diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome…


Elderhood

By Louise Aronson,

Book cover of Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

Louise Aronson was a practicing physician who worked primarily with older patients before becoming a social critic. Now she focuses on ageism in our medical institutions and well as society in general. Her book, Elderhood, is a penetrating analysis of what it means to be older in the US and a critique of the anti-aging culture we live in. Her book is filled with her own observations and stories that show the reader what needs to change in our culture and institutions. Her model of the three stages of life—childhood, adulthood, and elderhood intrigued me.

Elderhood

By Louise Aronson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Elderhood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Winner of the WSU AOS Bonner Book Award

The New York Times bestseller from physician and award-winning writer Louise Aronson--an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life, as revelatory as Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.

For more than 5,000 years, "old" has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more.…


Journey’s End

By Victoria Brewster, Julie Saeger Nierenberg,

Book cover of Journey’s End: Death, Dying, and the End of Life

This book is an anthology of over 50 perspectives on death and dying, grief, and bereavement shared by professionals who work in supporting the dying and bereaved and by those who have lived their own unique experiences of loss. It is a comprehensive cross-section of this topic and one which can be a valuable resource to anyone going through their own such experience or those who are preparing to support others in grief.

Journey’s End

By Victoria Brewster, Julie Saeger Nierenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Journey’s End as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Journey's End, many and varied collaborators write about death, dying, and the end of life. We attempt to describe real life issues and circumstances, and we discuss ways to proactively deal with them. Useful training, resource, and reference material is also included.

Death, dying, and end of life are topics many prefer to avoid. This book suggests that we benefit from having frank discussions, living life to the fullest, and planning for our own journey's end, whenever that may be. Everyone who is born eventually will die, whether or not we want to embrace that fact.

****

Though few…


Leaning Into Love

By Elaine Mansfield,

Book cover of Leaning Into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief

Mansfield’s poignant story of her beloved husband’s journey through cancer and his eventual death is a heartfelt telling of the intimate story of how she becomes a widow and how she meets that event with courage and spiritual exploration. She rises from the ashes of her grief and soars like a phoenix to give back to others, a brilliantly told tale.

Leaning Into Love

By Elaine Mansfield,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Leaning Into Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gold Medal Winner, Independent Publisher Book Award in Category Aging, Death and Dying

"Magnificent, profoundly moving . . . gives encouragement and solace to all." —Naomi Shihab Nye

"I'll find a way to be all right," Elaine promised Vic, her dying husband and best friend of 42 years. Leaving the hospital after he passed, she had no idea how. Her uplifting story of love, hope, determination, and triumph is a gift to the half million women who lose spouses each year.

Leaning into Love captures the heart--from the extraordinary closeness of Elaine's marriage to how she and Vic transform their…


With the End in Mind

By Kathryn Mannix,

Book cover of With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial

Mannix is a retired Palliative Care Consultant, and this wonderful book takes case studies from her long career and presents them as vignettes designed to reassure a readership who may be anxious about the process of dying. She relates each story with candour and humility, acknowledging how much she has learnt from her patients and their families whilst glossing over the enormous impact that she has evidently had on their care.

This is an incredibly useful book for those working with people at the end of life, but it is also a really lovely read for anyone fearful of death, anyone who has felt the impact of a family bereavement, and anyone who will one day face death themselves, i.e., every single one of us. 

With the End in Mind

By Kathryn Mannix,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked With the End in Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'Impossible to read with dry eyes or an unaltered mindset' Sunday Times

'Illuminating and beautiful' Cathy Rentzenbrink

What if everything you thought you knew about death was wrong?

How should we prepare for the facts of dying and saying our goodbyes?

And what if understanding death improved your life?

By turns touching and tragic, funny and wise, With the End in Mind brings together Kathryn Mannix ' s lifetime of medical experience to tell powerful stories of life and death.


Gifted By Grief

By Jane Duncan Rogers,

Book cover of Gifted By Grief: A True Story of Cancer, Loss and Rebirth

Rogers has an unexpected message to share. It’s possible to be grateful amidst a loved one’s death. In her case, it was the loss of her husband, and the story is told through blog posts he composed during his final year of life along with her own journal entries. By seeing her way through her own depths of grief, Rogers points the way for readers to seek and find their own gifts embedded in the grief of loss.

Gifted By Grief

By Jane Duncan Rogers,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gifted By Grief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Is it really possible to be grateful for your husband’s death? This is the message that ultimately comes over in Jane Duncan Rogers’ book Gifted By Grief: A True Story of Cancer, Loss and Rebirth. Told through the medium of blog posts by her husband in his last year, her own journal entries, and a heartfelt, poignant and riveting narrative, Jane invites the reader into her grief-stricken world. Where this might be harrowing, it is found to be ironic; where there might be pointlessness and despair, gifts are found, inspiring the reader find the gifts in their own life situation.


5 book lists we think you will like!

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