A story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship.

A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people, the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences.

The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.

Richard Russo, at the very top of his game, returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and the characters from Nobody's Fool (1993).

The irresistible Sully, who in the intervening years has come by some unexpected good fortune, is staring down a VA cardiologist's estimate that he has only a year or two left. It's hard work trying to keep this news from the most important people in his life: Ruth, the married woman he carried on with for years; the ultra-hapless Rub Squeers, who worries that he and Sully aren't still best friends; and Sully's son and grandson, for whom he was mostly an absentee figure (and now a regretful one).

We also enjoy the company of Doug Raymer, the chief of police who's obsessing over the identity of the man his wife might've been about to run off with before dying in a freak accident. Bath's mayor, the former academic Gus Moynihan, whose wife problems are, if anything, even more pressing. Then there's Carl Roebuck, whose lifelong run of failing upward might now come to ruin. And finally, there's Charice Bond - a light at the end of the tunnel that is Chief Raymer's office - as well as her brother, Jerome, who might well be the train barreling into the station.

Everybody's Fool is filled with humor, heart, hard times, and people you can't help but love, possibly because their various faults make them so stridently human.

The Final Diagnosis is a captivating tale of life and death struggles set within the walls of a large American hospital. Joe Pearson, the chief pathologist, stands at the center of this drama. His role is pivotal as he makes the final diagnosis on every patient, and ultimately, on himself.

As changes loom over Three Counties Hospital, Dr. Kent O’Donnell, a dynamic and ambitious surgeon, takes on the challenge to modernize the institution. His efforts bring him face to face with Dr. Pearson, whose outdated methods are at odds with the hospital's new direction.

This novel, richly detailed and meticulously researched, unveils the professional, personal, and romantic challenges faced by those within the medical field. It is a place where life often begins and ends, filled with moments of joy and inevitable tragedy.

In his latest international bestseller, the celebrated author of The Alchemist addresses the fundamental questions asked by millions: What am I doing here today? and Why do I go on living?

Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for: youth and beauty, plenty of attractive boyfriends, a fulfilling job, and a loving family. Yet something is lacking in her life. Inside her is a void so deep that nothing could possibly ever fill it. So, on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die. She takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up.

Naturally Veronika is stunned when she does wake up at Villete, a local mental hospital, where the staff informs her that she has, in fact, partially succeeded in achieving her goal. While the overdose didn't kill Veronika immediately, the medication has damaged her heart so severely that she has only days to live.

The story follows Veronika through the intense week of self-discovery that ensues. To her surprise, Veronika finds herself drawn to the confinement of Villete and its patients, who, each in his or her individual way, reflect the heart of human experience. In the heightened state of life's final moments, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before: hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. She finds that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying, and at the eleventh hour emerges more open to life than ever before.

In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho takes the reader on a distinctly modern quest to find meaning in a culture overshadowed by angst, soulless routine, and pervasive conformity. Based on events in Coelho's own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Poignant and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.

How We Die offers a profound meditation and portrait of the experience of dying. It elucidates the decisions that can be made to allow each person an understanding of death, as well as their own choice of death.

This definitive resource on perhaps the single most universal human concern—death—addresses contemporary issues in end-of-life care. It includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the current state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus.

Sherwin Nuland's masterful work is even more relevant today, discussing how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.