Death Books

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying

Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 160 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Help for Caregivers of Dying 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My sister-in-law asked for this book when her son-in-law was recently killed in a motorcycle accident. I've ordered 3 or 4 and they give so much insight into what a dying patient is feeling - very reassuring and comforting to the loved ones.

Editorial Review:

Five years after its first publication, with more than 150,000 copies in print, Final Gifts has become a classic. In this moving and compassionate book, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years experience tending the terminally ill.

Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts—of wisdom, faith, and love—that the dying leave for the living to share.

Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, David Kessler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

On Grief and Grieving 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

"Grief is the intense emotional response to the pain of a loss. It is the reflection of a connection that has been broken. Most important, grief is an emotional, spiritual, and psychological journey to healing." pg. 227

This book has been a tremendous help to me. I lost my husband, my best friend 7 months ago. I am not the kind of person who opens up to my close friends and family much less a therapist. I new I needed some help to get a perspective of what I was experiencing and feeling in my loss.
I saw myself going through the 5 stages of grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
In going through all these stages and reading this wonderful book I realize that it is ok to feel sad, it is ok to look at the picture of us and cry and even be angry because we won't be going back to Hawaii like we talked about. It's ok to not want to get out of bed some days.
The most important thing I gained from reading this book is the fact that because he went away, my life is forever changed, I will never "get over it", and my family and friends will have to realize that.
"The person you were is forever changed.
A part of the old you died with your loved one.And a part of your loved one lives on in the new you." pg. 119

Editorial Review:

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's On Death and Dying changed the way we talk about the end of life. Before her own death in 2004, she and David Kessler completed On Grief and Grieving, which looks at the way we experience the process of grief.

Just as On Death and Dying taught us the five stages of death -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance -- On Grief and Grieving applies these stages to the grieving process and weaves together theory, inspiration, and practical advice, including sections on sadness, hauntings, dreams, isolation, and healing.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

Mitch Albom

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Doubleday Amazon Marketplace: 1267 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2112 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Immortal 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Where are you in life? Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie will tell you. No, not directly ... but indirectly. If you gain nothing from reading this book, chances are you didn't like what the book said about you.

Think about that.

If you're jaded, immature, or chasing the material things in life, you're not going to like this book. Chances are, as Morrie so succinctly puts it, your life lacks meaning or true purpose. In other words, you're not happy with you. Sorry if this calls you out, but it has the merit of truth.

And yes, I expect some to deny it.

Wisdom and maturity shine in this work. But you have to be ready to hear it. If you feel insulted or need to insult a dying man's wisdom, well ... consider the source.

Recommended, but only to those ready to learn a truth about life: this is how one gains immortality and what continues after death.

Love.

Wolfe

Editorial Review:

This true story about the love between a spiritual mentor and his pupil has soared to the bestseller list for many reasons. For starters: it reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the significant mentors of our past. It also plays out a fantasy many of us have entertained: what would it be like to look those people up again, tell them how much they meant to us, maybe even resume the mentorship? Plus, we meet Morrie Schwartz--a one of a kind professor, whom the author describes as looking like a cross between a biblical prophet and Christmas elf. And finally we are privy to intimate moments of Morrie's final days as he lies dying from a terminal illness. Even on his deathbed, this twinkling-eyed mensch manages to teach us all about living robustly and fully. Kudos to author and acclaimed sports columnist Mitch Albom for telling this universally touching story with such grace and humility. --Gail Hudson

The Last Dance: Encountering Death and Dying

Lynne Ann DeSpelder, Albert Lee Strickland

Amazon Price: $87.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $86.48

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Editorial Review:

The best-selling textbook in the field, The Last Dance offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of death and dying. Integrating the experiential, scholarly, social, individual, emotional, and intellectual dimensions of death and dying, the eighth edition of this acclaimed text has been revised to offer cutting-edge and comprehensive coverage of death studies. This new edition of The Last Dance provides solid grounding in theory and research, as well as practical application to students' lives.

The Last Dance: Encountering Death and Dying

Lynne Ann DeSpelder, Albert Lee Strickland

Amazon Price: $91.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages Amazon Marketplace: 65 new & used starting at $37.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This is a wonderfully written and organized text that students will hold on to and not sell after reading it! 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I will be using The Last Dance for the third year in a course I teach on Death and Dying in Western Culture. This text does a marvelous job of addressing the socio-cultural aspects of death in America and the world. The chapter on suicide is both helpful and haunting. There are so many excellent illustrations and photographs in this book that it really comes alive for the students. It is clear that the authors are very familiar with their subject matter, and that they care very much about those who read this book. I cannot imagine a better general text on the subject of death and dying.

Editorial Review:

The best-selling textbook in the field, The Last Dance offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of death and dying. Integrating the experiential, scholarly, social, individual, emotional, and intellectual dimensions of death and dying, the seventh edition of this acclaimed text has been thoroughly revised to offer cutting-edge and comprehensive coverage of death studies. Together with its companion volumes, this new edition of The Last Dance provides solid grounding in theory and research, as well as practical application to students' lives.

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead

David Shields

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Amazon Significant Seven, February 2008: "After you turn 7, your risk of dying doubles every eight years." By your 80s, you "no longer even have a distinctive odor ... You're vanishing." "The brain of a 90-year-old is the same size as that of a 3-year-old." And it goes on and on. David Shields's litany of decay and decrepitude might have overwhelmed the age-sensitive reader (like this one), but The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead manages to transcend the maudlin by melding personal history with frank biological data about every stage of life, creating an "autobiography about my body" that seeks meaning in death, but moreover, life. Shields filters his frank--and usually foreboding--data through his own experience as a 51-year-old father with burgeoning back pain, contrasting his own gloomy tendencies with the defiant perspective of his own 97-year-old father, a man who has waged a lifelong, urgent battle against the infirmities of time. (If believed, his love life at age 70 was truly marvelous.) Interwoven with observations of philosophers from Cicero and Sophocles to Lauren Bacall and Woody Allen ("I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying."), Shields's book is a surprisingly moving and life-affirming embrace of the human condition, where inevitable failures and frailties become "thrilling" and "liberating," rather than dour portents of The End. --Jon Foro

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Amazon.com Guest Review: Danielle Trussoni
David Shields's The Thing About Life is that One Day You'll Be Dead is an addictively punchy, startlingly brilliant exploration of our most essential relationship--the one between parent and child. Shields juxtaposes a storm of astonishing facts about the development of the human body ("By the time you're 5, your head has attained 90 percent of its mature size; by 7, your brain reaches 90 percent of its maximum weight; by 9, 95 percent; during adolescence, 100 percent") with an intimate portrait of himself as a son and father. The result is a naked, honest, and often funny book that forces one to look clearly at the realities of the body--especially the burden that biology imposes upon our inner life--in a fresh and disturbing way. The writing is fast, postmodern, and filled with quotations from such diverse sources as Shields's back doctor and Tolstoy. The style might be dizzying in the hands of a less perceptive narrator, but Shields has the eye of an archeologist cataloging the bizarre traits of an ancient civilization. How Shields managed to compress the whole mess of love, family, genetics, and desire into this elegant, elemental book is a wonder. --Danielle Trussoni, author of Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir

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How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter

Sherwin B. Nuland

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

To the wastebin! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Prepare yourself for a collection of voyeuristic anecdotal accounts of the dying experience. This book is void of any commendable consequence. I could not even offer it as a donation to a charitable organization. The book has been discreetly relegated to the trash bin beneath the putrifying garbage. There it will remain until next Tuesday, trash pickup day.

Editorial Review:

Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying--of patients, and of his own family--he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death's multiplicity.

"It's impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don't know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here."--James Gleick

I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye (Updated Edition): Surviving, Coping and Healing After the Sudden Death of a Loved One

Pamela Blair, Brook Noel

Amazon Price: $10.87 List Price: $15.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Sourcebooks, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $9.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 73 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This updated edition of the best-selling bereavement classic (more than 75,000 copies in print) explores tragic and sudden loss, authored by two women who have lost someone firsthand. Featured on ABC World News, Fox and Friends and many other shows, this book acts as a touchstone of sanity through difficult times. I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye covers such difficult topics as the first few weeks, suicide, death of a child, children and grief, funerals and rituals, physical effects, homicide and depression.

With new material covering the unique circumstances of loss, men and women's grieving styles, religion and faith, myths and misunderstandings, I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye reflects the shifting face of grief.

Each year about eight million Americans suffer the death of a close family member. Such incomprehensible loss must be dealt with daily-for those who face the challenges of a sudden death, I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye can be a comforting hand to hold.

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon

Thomas M. Myers, Michael P. Ghiglieri

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Astonishing! and Very Real 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have been to the Grand Canyon more than once. In fact, I bought this book from one of the stores in the park on the rim. I too, could not put it down. I have told numerous people about the book and recommended it to friends and associates and anyone visiting the canyon for the first time. This book is NOT fiction folks, it is the real deal. It absolutely amazes me some of the ways people have died here. EVERY conceivable way is mentioned. It , in a way seems morbid to some degree, kind of like reading detective magazines or something, like my Grandpa used to do. But once into the first few pages you realize, that it is not just about death , but about living too. People that have come to see the awe of the Grand Canyon and its life and their lives intermingling. What's unfortunate is the complete utter disregard some people have for what is so obvious. Granted, some of the deaths are COMPLETELY accidental, but some are beyond stupid. One that I will mention here is the park WORKER, who had a few drinks , decided to get up on the wall , and fell to their death. The episodes that also got me, are the people who take a bottle of water in the SUMMER in ARIZONA and think they can walk twenty miles of very rough country with no problem...well, many of them found out , or were able to look down from heaven and realize what a bad mistake they made. While shocking , this is also an instructional manual for anyone who goes. Moms, Dads, Kids...please think twice before posing for that picture with your back to the Canyon...and be EXTRA careful where you place your feet! GREAT READ.

Editorial Review:

Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World's Seven Natural Wonders.

Two veterans of decades of adventuring in Grand Canyon chronicle the first complete and comprehensive history of Canyon misadventures. These episodes span the entire era of visitation from the time of the first river exploration by John Wesley Powell and his crew of 1869 to that of tourists falling off its rims in Y2K.

These accounts of the 550 people who have met untimely deaths in the Canyon set a new high water mark for offering the most astounding array of adventures, misadventures, and life saving lessons published between any two covers. Over the Edge promises to be the most intense yet informative book on Grand Canyon ever written.

Death, Society, and the Human Experience (9th Edition)

Robert Kastenbaum

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Psychology of Death 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The text book is very accurate in response to Americas view of death.

College Text 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This textbook explores many issues that people do not want to discuss but the material is handled in a very sensitive manner. Coupled with 10 internet programs 30 minutes in length, this book will help you to make some life decisions as well as help you to discuss the material with others. Excellent book.