For the many readers who love The Fault in Our Stars, this is the story of a girl who is determined to live, love, and to write her own ending before her time is finally up. Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, and drugs with excruciating side effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of “normal” life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, are all painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time runs out. A Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year A Booklist Editors’ Choice A Book Sense Children’s Pick A Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Choice A Publishers Weekly Flying Start Author An ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults The newly released feature film Now Is Good, starring Dakota Fanning, is based on Jenny Downham's intensely moving novel.

After losing someone she loved, artist Candy Chang painted the side of an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood with chalkboard paint and stenciled the sentence, "Before I die I want to _____." Within a day of the wall's completion, it was covered in colorful chalk dreams as neighbors stopped and reflected on their lives. Since then, more than four hundred Before I Die walls have been created by people all over the world. This beautiful hardcover book is an inspiring celebration of these walls and the stories behind them. Filled with hope, fear, humor, and heartbreak, Before I Die presents an intimate portrait of the dreams within our communities and a chance to ponder life's ultimate question.

An illustrated selection of answers to the title's question, submitted online and collected by Ben Nemtin, Dave Lingwood, Duncan Penn and Jonnie Penn, collectively known as The Buried Life and featured in the MTV reality television series of the same name. Some answers include essays relating how the online submissions were accomplished. Also included are brief essays on how the four young men accomplished some of their lists' tasks and their experiences helping others complete their lists.

The Day Before I Died is a memoir of an innocent Irish Catholic boy on his journey from the quiet New England coast and the apple orchards of Pennsylvania to Vietnam and, ultimately, to the brink of suicide. Traversing minefields both at home and abroad, the author shares these intensely personal stories of overcoming the scars of war, disfigurement, emotional abuse, sexual orientation, and bullying. It is an intimate look at the many triggers that led him to consider suicide and the path of resilience and strength that kept him alive. jfwhitaker.com Testimonials No one wakes up one day and says, "I think I'll commit suicide!" Rather, the pains and shames of life eventually take their toll to the point where suicide seems like a solution. The Day Before I Died chronicles the life of the author as he wrestled with the demons of self-hate, shame, and fear. He now shares his story in hopes of saving the lives of those who are shrouded in similar darkness. Reading the book to its completion is a metaphor for why suicide isn't a solution. —Toni Cole, MSW, LCSW, author of Negro Woman; Chocolate Love Letters: For Black Men from the Women and Children Who Love Them Joe Whitaker is a natural storyteller and his memoir, The Day Before I Died, is a compelling read, sometimes funny, sometimes somber. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but most importantly, you'll find hope. —Martin Roy Hill, author of the Linus Schag, NCIS, and the Peter Brandt mystery thrillers

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting. "An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. "A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe "Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times “A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle

A guide to living life to the fullest offers suggestions on seizing the day through adventures and challenges, from flying a plane to swimming with sharks to milking a cow, all of them entertaining to read and exciting to experience. Original. 50,000 first printing.

1) Lose my virginity 2) Apologize to Rachel 3) Get back at Biff 4) Jam and party with Shakes the Clown 5) Laugh in death’s face 6) Go to Africa 7) Rob a bank 8) Tell Mark to screw himself 9) Find out why Grandpa and Dad don't talk 10) Tell the truth