Akron Public Library

"Passionate advocate for end-of-life care and TikTok star Nurse Hadley shares moving stories of joy, wisdom, and redemption from her patients' final moments, offering powerful lessons on facing death, recovering from loss, and how to live your life in this deeply personal memoir. Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in popular culture, even in the medical field. Our understanding of death is riddled with misconceptions: memories flashing...

An old woman who has outlived all her friends is reluctant to become too attached to the stray dog that visits her each day. An old woman discovers an abandoned puppy that she is afraid to name--or to even love. This moving story features Gary Larson-esque "(The Far Side)" visuals that will appeal to adults as well as kids. How does an old woman who has outlived all her friends keep from being lonely? By naming the things in her life she knows she...

"Citra and Rowan have disappeared. Endura is gone. It seems like nothing stands between Scythe Goddard and absolute dominion over the world scythedom. With the silence of the Thunderhead and the reverberations of the Great Resonance still shaking the earth to its core, the question remains: Is there anyone left who can stop him? The answer lies in the Tone, the Toll, and the Thunder"--

"From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the...

Presents a meditation on coping with the loss of an animal who has enriched one's life, sharing observations on the ways in which people grieve for their pets, related philosophical quesions, and the process of letting go.

"What are you reading?" That's the quest Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was a rare type of hepatitis. Months later she was diagnosed with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer. This is the inspiring story of a son and his mother, who start a "book club"...

From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: "Has the makings of an American classic." —Ann Patchett
Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother;...

"In It's OK That You're Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides-as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner-Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a...

In a near-future New York City where a service alerts people on the day they will die, teenagers Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio meet using the Last Friend app and are faced with the challenge of living a lifetime on their End Day.

"Suicide would appear to be the last taboo. Even incest is now discussed freely in the popular media, but the suicide of a loved one is still an act most people are unable to talk about - or even to admit to their closest family and friends. This is just one of the many painful and paralyzing truths author Carla Fine discovered when her husband, a successful young physician, took his own life in December 1989. And being unable to speak openly and...