{"product_id":"getting-to-know-death-a-meditation","title":"Getting to Know Death: A Meditation","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGetting to Know Death\u003c\/i\u003e could just as easily be called \u003ci\u003eGetting to Know Life\u003c\/i\u003e. As a meditation, it is both unsentimental and full of wonder. As a piece of writing, it stands beside the best of Godwin's fiction. Extraordinary.\" -Ann Patchett\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling, three-time National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin, a consideration of what makes for a life well lived-for readers of Oliver Sacks's \u003ci\u003eGratitude \u003c\/i\u003eand Deborah Levy's \u003ci\u003eCost of Living\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI can't see a way out of this.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThings will not necessarily get better.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis is my life, but I may not get to do what I want in it.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIngmar Bergman once said that an artist should always have one work between himself and death. When renowned author Gail Godwin tripped and broke her neck while watering the dogwood tree in her garden at age eighty-five, a lifetime of writing and publishing behind her and a half-finished novel in tow, Bergman's idea quickly unfurled in front of her, forcing her to confront a creative life interrupted. In \u003ci\u003eGetting to Know Death\u003c\/i\u003e, Godwin shares what spoke to her while in a desperate place. Remembering those she has loved and survived, including a brother and father lost to suicide, and finding meaning in the encounters she has with other patients as she heals, she takes stock of a life toward the end of its long graceful arc, finding her path through the words she has written and the people she has loved. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAt once beautiful, biting, precise, poetic, and propulsive, \u003ci\u003eGetting to Know Death \u003c\/i\u003eis her own reckoning with the meaning of a life, the forms of passion that guide it, and how the stories we hold can shape our memories and preserve our selves as we write our own endings.","brand":"Gail Godwin","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46334672994540,"sku":"9781639734443","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9781639734443.jpg?v=1743624262","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/getting-to-know-death-a-meditation","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}