<p><b>"<i>Getting to Know Death</i> could just as easily be called <i>Getting to Know Life</i>. 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</b><br><br><b>From <i>New York Times</i>-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 <i>Gratitude </i>and Deborah Levy''s <i>Cost of Living</i>.</b><br><br><b><i>I can''t see a way out of this.</i></b><br><b><i>Things will not necessarily get better.</i></b><br><b><i>This is my life, but I may not get to do what I want in it.</i></b><br><br>Ingmar 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 nove