Shelfology Book Pairing

by Douglas Adams

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe continues the story of Arthur Dent; Trillian, his sometime girlfriend; Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the Imperial Galactic Government; Marvin the depressed robot; and Ford, his longtime hitchhiking companion. The Heart of Gold is speeding away from Magrathea, the adventurers having barely escaped there with their lives at the end of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End

by Atul Gawande

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 'A GOOD READ' THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'GAWANDE'S MOST POWERFUL, AND MOVING, BOOK' MALCOLM GLADWELL 'BEING MORTAL IS NOT ONLY WISE AND DEEPLY MOVING; IT IS AN ESSENTIAL AND INSIGHTFUL BOOK FOR OUR TIMES' OLIVER SACKS For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. It didn't matter whether you were five or fifty - every day was a roll of the dice. But now, as medical advances push the boundaries of survival further each year, we have become increasingly detached from the reality of being mortal. So here is a book about the modern experience of mortality - about what it's like to get old and die, how medicine has changed this and how it hasn't, where our ideas about death have gone wrong. With his trademark mix of perceptiveness and sensitivity, Atul Gawande outlines a story that crosses the globe, as he examines his experiences as a surgeon and those of his patients and family, and learns to accept the limits of what he can do. Never before has aging been such an important topic. The systems that we have put in place to manage our mortality are manifestly failing; but, as Gawande reveals, it doesn't have to be this way. The ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death, but a good life - all the way to the very end.