{"product_id":"knocking-on-heavens-door-the-path-to-a-better-way-of-death-9781451641981","title":"Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A thoroughly researched and compelling mix of personal narrative and hard-nosed reporting that captures just how flawed care at the end of life has become\" (Abraham Verghese, \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eT\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003ehe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eBook Review\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis bestselling memoir--hailed a \"triumph\" by \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e--ponders the \"Good Death\" and the forces within medicine that stand in its way. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAward-winning journalist Katy Butler was living thousands of miles from her aging parents when the call came: her beloved seventy-nine-year-old father had suffered a crippling stroke. Katy and her mother joined the more than 28 million Americans who are shepherding loved ones through their final declines. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDoctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker, which kept his heart going while doing nothing to prevent a slide into dementia, near-blindness, and misery. When he said, \"I'm living too long,\" mother and daughter faced wrenching moral questions. Where is the line between saving a life and prolonging a dying? When do you say to a doctor, \"Let my loved one go?\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen doctors refused to disable the pacemaker, condemning her father to a lingering death, Butler set out to understand why. Her quest had barely begun when her mother, faced with her own grave illness, rebelled against her doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and met death the old-fashioned way: head-on. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePart memoir, part medical history, and part spiritual guide, \u003ci\u003eKnocking on Heaven's Door \u003c\/i\u003eis a map through the labyrinth of a broken medical system. Technological medicine, obsessed with maximum longevity, is creating more suffering than it prevents. Butler chronicles the rise of Slow Medicine, a movement bent on reclaiming the \"Good Deaths\" our ancestors prized. In families, hospitals, and the public sphere, this visionary memoir is\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003einspiring the difficult conversations we must have to light the path to a better way of death. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eA lyrical meditation written with extraordinary beauty and sensitivity\" (\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eButler, Katy:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Katy Butler's articles have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e The Best American Science Writing\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Essays\u003c\/i\u003e. A finalist for a National Magazine Award, she lives in Northern California. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eKnocking on Heaven's Door\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Art of Dying Well\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Scribner Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50515270041874,"sku":"9781451641981","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_540e6994-45d8-4ec7-9baa-ac18c2f9a501.jpg?v=1731001543","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/knocking-on-heavens-door-the-path-to-a-better-way-of-death-9781451641981","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}