“A gentle, knowledgeable information to a fate most of us share” (The Washington Post): the first and only all-encompassing action arrange for the end of life.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you for dying,” hospice physician B.J. Miller and journalist and caregiver Shoshana Berger write in A Newbie’s Guidebook to the End. “Our supreme purpose right here isn’t so much to help you die as it is usually to release as much existence as it can be until you do.”

Theirs is a clear-eyed and big-hearted action plan for getting close to the in regards to a Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Information for Living Existence and Facing Death end of life, written to greatly help readers experience more in charge of an event that so often seems not controllable. Their book offers everything from step-by-step guidelines for how to do your paperwork and navigate the health care system to answers to questions you might be afraid to ask your doctor, like if sex is still alright when you’re unwell. Get guidance for how to break the news headlines to your employer, whether to share old secrets together with your family members, how to face friends who might not be as empathetic as you’d hoped, and how to talk to your children about your will. (Don’t be concerned: if anyone gets snippy, it’ll be their spouses, not really them.) There are also lessons for survivors, like how to turn off a liked one’s social networking accounts, clean out the home, and write a great eulogy.

An honest, unexpected, and detail-oriented guidebook to the most common of all experiences, A Beginner’s Instruction to the finish is “a publication that every family members should have, the equivalent of Dr. Spock but also for this other stage of life” (NY Times bestselling writer Dr. Abraham Verghese).