The Shelf Life of Ashes: A Memoir

* Nearly 10 million adult children over the age of 50 provide care for their aging parents in the US, and they themselves are aging, which makes the conversation about this topic urgent and compelling.

* Women who were 65 in 2014 can expect to live another 24 years, to age 86-a fact that’s leading many of us to think about the quality of life in later years.

* According to the US State Department, US families adopted more than 7,000 children in 2012. This book explores what issues with this familial arrangement persist today.

* The number of American Buddhists is booming (an American Religious Identification Survey posits that from 1990 to 2000, Buddhism grew 170%). Practitioners, initiates, and those who are spiritually inclined will be drawn to this story.