Suicide Books

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple

Deborah Layton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 256 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Deborah Layton was, by her own account, a typical rebellious youth, with nothing in her dossier to indicate that she would eventually find herself in Jim Jones's People's Temple in Guyana, looking for a way out of the green hell that had become the People's Temple Agricultural Project. She barely escaped in June 1978. Within months, more than 900 people drank Jones's cyanide punch and committed "revolutionary suicide" in the face of mounting stateside pressure on the cult, some of it prompted by Layton's own testimonials upon her safe return home. Her brother, Larry, also survived, and as one of the few left alive in Guyana became a scapegoat for Jones's crimes; he is now serving a life sentence in federal prison.

There is a simple naiveté at the root of Seductive Poison. Layton's own youthful innocence, foremost, but also the desire to trust another person, the need for belonging and meaning, which led so many perfectly normal Americans to place their faith in a suicidal madman. Far from confirming the simplistically monstrous Jones of the public imagination, Layton paints the man as a dark, twisted shaman, by turns soothing, then suddenly malevolent and petty, with a hugely sadistic streak that belied his perfectly coifed hair, expensive suits, and impressive political connections. The scenes in which she describes her escape and flight to safety are wrenching, her last-minute conversation with Jones and his seductive appeal for her to return home to Jonestown are chilling, and her fear and indecision are still palpable on the printed page. For Layton to recount tales this personal and horrifying must have been tremendously difficult. For her to lift those recollections above the bargain-basement freak-show reputation the People's Temple has achieved in the popular imagination and depict them with the power of great tragedy is nothing but extraordinary. --Tjames Madison

Final Exit (Third Edition): The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying

Derek Humphry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

As the legal controversy continues--this newly revised and updated third edition of the landmark bestseller contains new, critically important information for patients, loved ones, and medical personnel.

The original publication of Final Exit stunned the nation by offering people with terminal illness a choice on how--and when--to end their suffering. It helped thousands by giving clear instructions to doctors, nurses, and families on how to handle a patient’s request for euthanasia.

In the wake of court cases and legislative mandates, this revised and updated third edition goes far beyond the original to provide new information about the legality of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and a thoughtful examination of the personal issues involved. It has become the essential source to help loved ones and supportive doctors remain within existing laws and keep a person’s dying intimate, private, and dignified.

With deep compassion and sensitivity, it spells out why a living will may not be sufficient to have a person’s wishes carried out--and what document is a better alternative. It updates where to get proper drugs and exactly how to carry out the quickest, most peaceful way to make a final exit. Finally, it gently talks to a person considering self-deliverance about alternatives, planning, and the means to make every death a "good death" at our time of greatest need.

No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving The Suicide Of A Loved One

Carla Fine

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Thank you for showing me a light through the darkness.... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It has been almost 3 months since my dad's suicide and until I read your book, I have felt completely lost. He decided to take his life after years of illness that was finally diagnosed as Pulmonary Fibrosis. I was told of his diagnosis on a Sunday and by that following Monday he had taken his life.

I did not get a chance to say goodbye. I did not get a chance to tell him all the things I wanted to tell him. He decided to leave us and so that he would not be a burden (on daily life and financially). However, he left us with another sort of burden that is difficult to express.

Over the past 3 months, I have been searching for a book that could help me with my grief. I read a few but they just scratched the surface. After reading the reviews of this book, I decided to order it hopeful that it would shine a light. I received it yesterday and read for hours into the night. I felt like the words were written just for me. Although some of the content can be difficult at times, the stories would not be as real if the details of the suicides were left out. Unless you have the details in many of the stories, you cannot truly understand why the pain is so big and so raw for the survivors.

Thank you for writing this book. I am comforted to know that my grief, anger, sadness, emptiness, confusion, despair and need for answers to questions that I will never get are emotions shared by other survivors of suicide.

Editorial Review:

Bar Section for Master Catalog Rack Systems Heavy-duty system for displaying catalogs Use 45 racks for desktop viewing; use 30 racks for countertop viewing Securely holds catalogs for placement in racks. Use ring sections for punched, thin catalogs or loose pages. Section fits all Master desktop and countertop racks. 1 Capacity Gray

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Kay Redfield Jamison

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Suicide is a particularly awful way to die: the mental suffering leading up to it is usually prolonged, intense, and unpalliated," writes Kay Redfield Jamison. "There is no morphine equivalent to ease the acute pain, and death not uncommonly is violent and grisly." Jamison has studied manic-depressive illness and suicide both professionally--and personally. She first planned her own suicide at 17; she attempted to carry it out at 28. Now professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she explores the complex psychology of suicide, especially in people younger than 40: why it occurs, why it is one of our most significant health problems, and how it can be prevented. Jamison discusses manic-depression, suicide in different cultures and eras, suicide notes (they "promise more than they deliver"), methods, preventive treatments, and the devastating effects on loved ones. She explores what type of person commits suicide, and why, and when. She illustrates her points with detailed anecdotes about people who have attempted or committed suicide, some famous, some ordinary, many of them young. Not easy reading, either in subject or style, but you'll understand suicide better and be jolted by the intensity of depression that drives young people to it. --Joan Price

His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina

Danielle Steel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 205 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Like Kurt Cobain, Nick Traina lived for punk rock (his bands made two CDs, Gift Before I Go and 17 Reasons), succumbed to heroin addiction, and died of suicide. His mom, Danielle Steel, takes us through her 19 twister-like years with Nick in a memoir more affecting than her potboiler novels. Like his AWOL addict father, Nick had good looks, bad behavior, and a yen for the feminine. Five days before he died, he phoned a woman he saw in a centerfold and had a new girlfriend by nightfall. But his fun was ever haunted by manic depression. At age 11, he was a bed wetter who ate all the Tylenol and Sudafed in the house. He first considered suicide at 13, as Steel learned by reading his diaries after his death.

There is tension in this story--one doctor told Steel if she could get Nick to live to 30, he'd probably live a normal life span. (For example, Nick's troubled dad resurfaced, sober, soon after his son's death.) And Steel conveys a sense of the intelligence Nick used to conceal his learning disability, and the irreverent charm that alternated with irrational rages. Oliver Sacks has urged us not to ask what neurological disease a person has, but what sort of person the disease has got hold of. Steel gives us a vivid sense of the costs of the disease to a family--and of the person who was Nick Traina. --Tim Appelo

When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death (Dino Life Guides for Families)

Laurie Krasny Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Helps children deal with death 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My eight year old son struggled with the death of an uncle. We found this book at the local library. He read it and then recommended that I read it - "it will help you too, mom." We had to purchase our own copy and got one for our school's guidance office. Great way to remember a loved one and deal with the loss at the same time.

Excellent resource 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I want to put in a strong vote of confidence for this book, even though some parents have found it too much, too soon. My dad died when my oldest daughter was not quite three; my mom, when she was not quite four. This book was an enormous help in explaining to her what had happened, putting it in terms that were both straightforward and manageable. Kids want to know the facts, because the facts are usually less scary than what a kid can imagine. Also, let's face it, every kid is going to have major issues with death--don't we as adults? If kids ARE given too much information, they will let us know--by facial expression, or changing the subject, or saying they don't want to read the book. If that happens, of course any parent would take the book away. However, I found it a big help.

Editorial Review:

Explains in simple language the feelings people may have regarding the death of a loved one and the ways to honor the memory of someone who has died.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents

Alec L. Miller, Jill H. Rathus, Marsha M. Linehan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A must have 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book is wonderful when working within the DBT model with teenaged clients. It addressed issues specific to the adolescent population.

Very Pleased 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 13 people found this review helpful.

The book arrived in a timely fashion and was in excellent condition. What more can one ask for?

Editorial Review:

Filling a tremendous need, this highly practical book adapts the proven techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to treatment of multiproblem adolescents at highest risk for suicidal behavior and self-injury. The authors are master clinicians who take the reader step by step through understanding and assessing severe emotional dysregulation in teens and implementing individual, family, and group-based interventions. Insightful guidance on everything from orientation to termination is enlivened by case illustrations and sample dialogues. Appendices feature 30 mindfulness exercises as well as lecture notes and 12 reproducible handouts for "Walking the Middle Path," a completely new DBT skills training module for adolescents and their families.

Dear People: Remembering Jonestown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Dear People Remembering Jonestown 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I have read so many books regarding Jonestown/Jim Jones and I will never understand why this tragedy happened. Dear People, Remembering Jonestown brings you so much closer to the people that were in Jonestown on that tragic day. I loved the personaL letters and interviews. I specially like the personal letters from Carolyn Layton and Maria Katsaris, two of Jims closes and very personal assistants. I loved this book! If you are thinking about reading this book I recommend you read first, Seductive Poison and Six Years with God. These two books are two of the most personal stories I have read about those that were the closes to Jim Jones. I highly recommend Dear People, well put together.


A.M.O
Van Nuys, CA

Editorial Review:

More than a quarter of a century after the fall of Peoples Temple, in which the world witnessed the devastating loss of over nine hundred lives—including those of Congressman Leo J. Ryan and several journalists—the tragedy of Jonestown continues to mystify. In a sensitive account that traces the rise and fall of the idealistic community movement that preceded the deaths at Jonestown, Denice Stephenson uses letters, oral histories, journal entries, and other original documents—many published here for the first time—to bring this inexplicable event into a very personal and human perspective.

-Coincides with the premiere of the new play "The Peoples Temple" by writer/director Leigh Fondakowski (The Laramie Project)

Healing Your Grieving Heart for Teens: 100 Practical Ideas (Healing Your Grieving Heart series)

Alan D. Wolfelt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Helping teens understand grief and mourning 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Wolfelt has written this book in an easy-read format, making it not only easy to pick up and thumb through, but the bulletted pages make it easier for teens to read. As a School Social Work intern, the activities listed on the bottom of each page are excellent sources of ideas for use with students with whom I work.

Editorial Review:

With sensitivity and insight, this series offers suggestions for healing activities that can help survivors learn to express their grief and mourn naturally. Acknowledging that death is a painful, ongoing part of life, they explain how people need to slow down, turn inward, embrace their feelings of loss, and seek and accept support when a loved one dies. Each book, geared for mourning adults, teens, or children, provides ideas and action-oriented tips that teach the basic principles of grief and healing. These ideas and activities are aimed at reducing the confusion, anxiety, and huge personal void so that the living can begin their lives again. Included in the books for teens and kids are age-appropriate activities that teach younger people that their thoughts are not only normal but necessary.

Why People Die by Suicide

Thomas Joiner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the wake of a suicide, the most troubling questions are invariably the most difficult to answer: How could we have known? What could we have done? And always, unremittingly: Why? Written by a clinical psychologist whose own life has been touched by suicide, this book offers the clearest account ever given of why some people choose to die.

Drawing on extensive clinical and epidemiological evidence, as well as personal experience, Thomas Joiner brings a comprehensive understanding to seemingly incomprehensible behavior. Among the many people who have considered, attempted, or died by suicide, he finds three factors that mark those most at risk of death: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself. Joiner tests his theory against diverse facts taken from clinical anecdotes, history, literature, popular culture, anthropology, epidemiology, genetics, and neurobiology--facts about suicide rates among men and women; white and African-American men; anorexics, athletes, prostitutes, and physicians; members of cults, sports fans, and citizens of nations in crisis.

The result is the most coherent and persuasive explanation ever given of why and how people overcome life's strongest instinct, self-preservation. Joiner's is a work that makes sense of the bewildering array of statistics and stories surrounding suicidal behavior; at the same time, it offers insight, guidance, and essential information to clinicians, scientists, and health practitioners, and to anyone whose life has been affected by suicide.

(20060130)