Bestselling writer Jane Heller thought she'd found her dream man-until he turned out to be a frequent flier," the term doctors and nurses use to refer to patients who land in the E.R. more often than the average person goes to Starbucks. Here, Jane shares her experiences of looking after her chronically ill husband with Nora Ephron-like wit, and offers practical guidance for handling it all without drowning. With advice on staying healthy while caring...

"After a lifetime of strained bonds with her aging parents, Patricia Williams finds herself in the unexpected position of being their caregiver and neighbor. Dodging the fine lines between service and servant, guardian and warden, she watches her parents climb over their conflicts and pain to face each new struggle with courage, faith, and a few missteps--still teaching her and still parenting her, when she isn't too overwhelmed to notice. Honest,...

""Not buying it, huh?" My mother acknowledged her assertion that the woman she pointed out at the rehab center as being her dead husband was a bit of a stretch. But this was the kind of conversation I had with Mom as her cognitve abilities declined and her psychosis fully bloomed. The true heart-wrenching, yet hilarious stories at the center of Dementia Sucks were born of a journal and blog that author Tracey S. Lawrence kept as her mother transformed...

"For the Marshalls, laughter is the best medicine. Especially when combined with alcohol, pain pills, excessive cursing, sexual escapades, actual medicine, and more alcohol. Meet Dan Marshall. 25, good job, great girlfriend, and living the dream life in sunny Los Angeles without a care in the world. Until his mother calls. And he ignores it, as you usually do when Mom calls. Then she calls again. And again. Dan thought things were going great at home....

Margaret Overton's Hope for a Cool Pillow is a passionate argument for planning end-of-life care. As physician, daughter and student of American health care, Overton pulls from all corners, showing us the emotional, financial and physical costs of not being prepared. Her daily rounds reveal harrowing consequences, her studies at Harvard highlight the industry's limits, and her own aging parents make her case universal. Deeply felt, frankly told, this...

"Elissa and Rita have forever struggled to find their place in each other's worlds. Rita, an overreaching, makeup-addicted, narcissistic Manhattan singer couldn't be more different from Elissa, her gay, taciturn New England writer daughter. Stuck in an outrageous maelstrom of codependency, mother and daughter cannot seem to extricate themselves from the center of each other's lives. Motherland is their universal story: a kaleidoscopic journey built...

Cynthia Lim thought she had the perfect life: a husband who was a successful attorney, a fulfilling career in education, two teenage sons in private school, and a home in Los Angeles rich in books, music, and art. Then in 2003, her husband Perry suffers a cardiac arrest and brain injury, lingering in a coma for ten days before slowly awakening. A different person emerges, one who has lost his short-term memory and is fully dependent on others. Married...