How Dear Is Life

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE© IN LITERATURE 2013 A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction A Best Book of the Year: The Atlantic, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, AV Club In story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate. Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro’s unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro’s own childhood. Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

'What a remarkable book this is; tender, funny, brave, heartfelt, radiant with love and life, and with the love of life. It brought me often to laughter and - several times - to tears' Robert Macfarlane From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Life in My Hands comes this vibrant, tender and deeply personal memoir that finds light and love in the darkest of places. As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable. Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love. And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world. Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

In this short, powerful book, Karen Hitchcock shines a light on ageism in our society. Through some unforgettable case studies, she shows what care for the elderly and dying is really like – both the good and the bad. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions and over-treatment, frailty and dementia. Dear Life is a moving and controversial argument against the creeping tendency to see the elderly as a “burden”—difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient’s wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark book by one of Australia’s most powerful writers. “The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change” – Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life

In this emotionally powerful, funny debut, Cricket Cherpin needs to figure out what to do with his life before he turns 18. But life sucksNso why not just give up?

Dear Life focuses largely on mortality in a consumerist world, and foreshadows the author’s sudden death in December 2012.

In Are You Hungry, Dear?, Doris takes her signature line from the show and makes it her own in a book that pairs hilarious episodes and dramatic turning points from her fascinating life with delicious recipes from her own card file. She shares the lessons learned in two marriages and numerous love affairs, her struggles with her own family, and her heroic efforts to build a career and raise a son on her own. Readers who love tough, feisty, judg-mental Marie Barone will see how Doris is all that and more: tough, sweet, brave, direct, and vibrant. Readers will embrace the un-for-get-table life of this very open star, and relate to the issues-like ageism in Hollywood, sex in the senior years, or her daughter-in-law's imperfect meat sauce-Doris cares about passionately.

A Test to Destruction (1960) was the eighth entry in Henry Williamson's fifteen-volume A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight spanning the years from the late Victorian period to the Second World War. It begins in the final year of the Great War. After the harsh winter of 1917 everyone is nearing the limits of their endurance. Hetty, temporarily relieved to have Phillip safely home, hopes desperately that her son will not be posted to France again. Phillip, however, is determined to go back, and adds his name to a list of those available for service. After returning to the Front, however, he is injured and sent on convalescent leave in the West Country, where his post-war civilian life begins. 'Williamson's style is romantic, though rarely sentimental, and his sensuous response to nature is fresh and surprising.' Anthony Burgess, Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939