The world is full of memoirs and many of them are wonderful. One that's just out and needs your attention is Michael Downing's brilliant, harrowing Life with Sudden Death: A Tale of Moral Hazard and Medical Misadventure. Downing was the last of 9 children in a happy family in Western, MA, where everything changed when he was 3 and his father died suddenly. Part I is about Downing's childhood; Part II is about what happens when the same thing befalls one of his brothers: sudden death in the midst of a very full life. Turns out Downing has the same gene lying in wait for him too, which is where the "medical misadventure" comes in. If A Year of Magical Thinking is more your taste than Running with Scissors , I'll go out on the limb and say you'd like Life with Sudden Death , maybe as much as I did.