Ocean State Libraries

"For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the...

Here is a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer - from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion. (Bestseller)...

Upbeat cancer survivor Lydia and her pragmatic sister, Margaret, start a "Knit to Quit" group in their Blossom Street yarn store in Seattle, bringing in a delightful assortment of customers for weekly self-help sessions, including a local baker who wants a baby as much as Lydia does, a super-stressed chocolate magnate who takes the knitting class after his doctor suggests it, and a young woman who is trying to quit obsessing about a broken engagement....

Anita Diamant's international bestseller The Red Tent brilliantly re-created the ancient world of womanhood. Diamant brings her remarkable storytelling skills to Good Harbor -- offering insight to the precarious balance of marriage and career, motherhood and friendship in the world of modern women. The seaside town of Gloucester, Massachusetts is a place where the smell of the ocean lingers in the air and the rocky coast glistens in the Atlantic sunshine....

Reflections of a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who lectured on "Really achieving your childhood dreams," shortly after having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His advice concerned seizing the moment while living, rather than dying.

"It's been five years since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, no closer to having their lives figured out. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living--and living well. But this reunion is different. They're not gathered as...

When Lisa's favorite patient Kathy loses her battle with cancer, she finds herself drawing closer to Carrie and Suzanne, Kathy's devoted friends. As their lives connect and they powerwalk the beaches of the Isle of Palms, they uncover the truth of Kathy's life-- and discover their own futures in the process. In this charming, evocative, soul-touching novel, Dorothea Benton Frank once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry where...

Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers have nothing in common, except they both have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses. While sharing a hospital room together, they decide to make a Bucket List of all the things they have ever wanted to do before they die. In the process of completing the list, both of them heal each other, become unlikely friends, and ultimately find the joy in life.

Inspired by personal experiences, an original story about friendship, love, survival, and finding humor in unlikely places. Two best friends' lives change when one of them is diagnosed with spinal cancer.

"The masterful story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century. Celebrated children's book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy--to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of...