Like many women of her generation, Heather Lanier did everything by the book when she was expecting her first child. But her daughter, Fiona, challenged all of Lanier's preconceptions. Born with an ultra-rare syndrome known as Wolf-Hirschhorn, Fiona received a daunting prognosis: She would experience significant developmental delays and might not reach her second birthday. Award-winning writer Heather Lanier's memoir about raising a child with a rare syndrome, defying the tyranny of normal, and embracing parenthood as a spiritual practice that breaks us open in the best of ways.

When you are told that you have leukemia, your world stops. Your brain can't function. You are asked to make decisions about treatment almost immediately, when you are not in your right mind. And yet you pull yourself together and start asking questions. Beside you is your doctor, whose job it is to solve the awful puzzle of bone marrow gone wrong. The two of you are in it together. In When Blood Breaks Down, Mikkael Sekeres, a leading cancer specialist, takes listeners on the journey that patient and doctor travel together.

In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.

In this groundbreaking new work, David Kessler - an expert on grief and the coauthor with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross of the iconic On Grief and Grieving - journeys beyond the classic five stages to discover a sixth stage: meaning.

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care - nearly 44 percent of all deaths - and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape.

Actor Jim Beaver (Supernatural, Deadwood, Justified) and his wife Cecily Adams (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Moogie) were at the peaks of their careers and happily raising a beautiful two-year old daughter, Madeline. Then tragedy struck, not once, but twice. What followed was laid down by Jim in a moving, poignant, and uplifting journal of the following year, a year filled with heartbreak as well as enormous gifts and invaluable lessons, not just for Jim and his family but for listeners who traveled along with him on his journey.

From the founder of This Gathered Nest YouTube channel, an uplifting story of Angela Braniff’s unusual path to becoming the mother to seven children through various methods of adoption and biological approaches, encouraging women and mothers to embrace the unique purpose that God has put in their lives.

In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son, Henry, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family had moved from Los Angeles to London with their two young boys when Rob’s wife was pregnant with Henry, their third. The move was an adventure that would bind them even more tightly together as they navigated the novelty of London, the culture clashes, and the funhouse experience of Rob’s fame—thanks to his role as co-creator and co-star of the hit series Catastrophe. Henry’s illness was a cataclysm that changed everything about their lives.

A practicing neurosurgeon and award-winning author shares his roadmap to finding hope and even happiness when the worst happens—by placing trust in God—in this powerful memoir of personal tragedy, grief, and recovery.

At the age of four, Dr. Lise Deguire suffered third-degree burns on 65 percent of her body as the result of both maternal and corporate negligence. Against the odds, she lived through the trauma, beginning decades of treatment as a burn survivor. Some chapters of this gripping journey focus on early events, including the story of the fire, her years of painful surgeries in the hospital, social isolation, and bullying.

"How did you get this number?" Those were the first words Jill Biden spoke to US senator Joe Biden when he called her out of the blue to ask her on a date. Growing up, Jill had wanted two things: a marriage like her parents' - strong, loving, and full of laughter - and a career. An early heartbreak had left her uncertain about love until she met Joe. But as they grew closer, Jill faced difficult questions: How would politics shape her family and professional life? And was she ready to become a mother to Joe's two young sons?

Leaving a life marked by crippling setbacks and his father's doubt, in 1967 a 20-something doctor from India arrived in America with only five dollars and the desire to claim his American dream. Faced with an entirely new culture, racism, and the lasting effects of disabling childhood injuries, through hard work and perseverance he overcame all odds. Now having performed over 15,000 open-heart surgeries, more than nearly every surgeon in history, Dr. Singh reflects on his most memorable patients and his incredible personal life.

When Jessica Zimmerman’s husband Brian contracted a mysterious illness that left him 60 pounds underweight and a prisoner to their master bathroom, she had no idea the journey of self-discovery on which they were both about to embark. As Jessica and Brian worked to solve the riddle of his illness, they also had a harder question to answer: Was their marriage even worth saving?

Of the many critical conversations we will all have throughout our lifetime, few are as important as the ones discussing death—yet few of these conversations are actually happening. Let's Talk About Death (over Dinner) offers keen, practical advice on how to have these conversations—not just at the dinner table, but anywhere. There's no one right way to talk about death, but Hebb shares time- and dinner-tested prompts to use as conversation starters, ranging from the spiritual to the practical, from analytical to downright funny and surprising.

There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care - nearly 44 percent of all deaths - and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape.

Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retirements before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non - life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker.

When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O'Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here?

Every 69 seconds, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Of the top 10 killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer's, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation.

In telling the intimate story of caring for her aged and ailing mother, Jane Gross offers indispensable, and often surprising, advice for the rapidly increasing number of adult children responsible for aging parents. Gross deftly weaves the specifics of her personal experience with a comprehensive resource for effectively managing the lives of one's own parents while keeping sanity and strength intact.

Four simple phrases - "Please forgive me", "I forgive you", "Thank you", and "I love you" - carry enormous power to mend and nurture our relationships and inner lives. These four phrases and the sentiments they convey provide a path to emotional well-being, guiding us through interpersonal difficulties to life with integrity and grace. Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, explains how we can practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives.

When Joselin Linder was in her 20s, her legs started to swell. She thought little of it until her health problems started to compound in ways that baffled her doctors. Diagnosed with extreme liver blockage and dangerous levels of lymph fluid, Joselin turned to the most similar case she could think of - her father's.

From Taya Kyle, New York Times best-selling author of American Wife and widow of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, an inspiring collection of stories, both personal and drawn from American history, that showcase the resilience of the “American spirit”.

In this collection of honest and sometimes raw stories, Dawn throws a loving, untoned arm around listeners as she brings them along on her journey through the loss of a child, divorce, cancer, rape, the death of her only sibling, her husband's substance abuse, and finding her way back to Jesus in the middle of it all. Dawn shares her personal story to show listeners how to find happiness and purpose even in the darkest of days. A beautiful gift book, Laughing Through the Ugly Cry is a great reminder to your girlfriends that you are with them every step of the way.

As if juggling a life with half-a-dozen kids, including triplets, isn’t enough, Steve Tate receives the life-altering news that one of his triplets, Hayes, has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The once-star collegiate football player finds himself fighting for his son’s life. This memoir takes you through the various challenges he faced raising a family of six kids and balancing a career, all while his son battled the odds. Both Steve and his high-school sweetheart, Savanna, found hope and happiness through the example of their 20-month-old son Hayes.

Oprah Winfrey has called him an inspiration, Maya Angelou saw him as a kindred spirit and fellow poet, and Jimmy Carter described Mattie Stepanek as the "most remarkable person I have ever known". When Jerry Lewis received his lifetime achievement award at the Oscars, footage of Mattie played behind him. Five years after his death from a rare neuromuscular disease, Mattie is still being celebrated for his indomitable spirit and message of hope.

At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it's clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let's face it: Most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We're awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.

A mesmerizing and courageous memoir: the story of two sisters uncovering the depth of their love through the life-and-death experience of a bone marrow transplant. Throughout her life Elizabeth Lesser has sought understanding about what it means to be true to yourself and, at the same time, truly connected to the ones you love. But when her sister, Maggie, needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a far more immediate and complex question about what it really means to love.

You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Listen to a few travel guides. Study the language, look at maps, gather equipment. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Pack your bags. This book is one of those travel guides - a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable - but she also explores its intimacies and joys.

No two autistic children heal in exactly the same way. And in her new book, Jenny expands her message to share recovery stories from parents across the country, showing how each parent fought to find her own child's perfect "remedy of interventions." Along the way, Jenny shares her own journey as an autism advocate and mother, as well as the continuing progress of her son, Evan. Emotional and genuinely practical, Mother Warriors will inspire a generation of parents with hope.