Parallels (Stage One, Section One)

What do you think are the parallels and contrasts (literal and-or metaphoric) between the author’s diagnosis and those of her mother and son?

Dasein (Stage One, Section Two)

The philosophical term “dasein” refers to the experience of being fully present in existence. How, do you think, does this relate to the book’s central thematic consideration – that is, its exploration of how to live while dying?  

Saying Please (Stage 2, Section One)

What do you think the author means when she says, in the quote from page 76, that “want [and] need – those unlit cul-de-sacs” are too perilous unadorned? What are cul-de-sacs? What does it suggest when the author refers to them as “unlit”?  

Naming (Stage Two, Section Two)

In “Memory of Elephants,” the author lists several names for groups of animals (“a school of fish or a pride of lions or a...