Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Pagan Book of Living and Dying: Practical Rituals, Prayers, Blessings, and Meditations on Crossing Over

The Pagan Book of Living and Dying: Practical Rituals, Prayers, Blessings, and Meditations on Crossing Over

by Starhawk, the Reclaiming Collective, M. Macha nig

In response to her own mother’s death, Starhawk, the bestselling author of the classic Spiral Dance, along with other Pagan authors, created in inspiring collection of essays, original prayers, blessings, and meditations that present the Pagan way of dying. In the tradition of such bestsellers as How We Die and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, it offers a new understanding of death and the rituals that... (more)

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and... (more)

Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying

Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying

by Stephen Levine

This is the first book ot show how to open oneself to the immensity of living with death, to participate fully in life as the perfect preparation for whatever may come next. Who Dies? provides calm compassion rather than the frightening melodrama of death.

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

by Stephen Levine

In his new book, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial best-seller Who Dies?, teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, each day mindfully--as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the... (more)

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

by Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch serves his readership as a poet and memoirist, and his townspeople as a funeral director. In this wholly unique collection of essays, the two vocations meet as Lynch shows himself to be a competent functionary of mourning--dispensing comfort and homespun wisdom to the grief-stricken--as well as a poet poignantly tuning language to the right tones of private release. He is also a man of sardonic wit,... (more)

On Death and Dying

by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

One of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century, On Death and Dying grew out of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this remarkable book, Dr. Kübler-Ross first explored the now-famous five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Through sample interviews and conversations, she... (more)

The Crow

by James O'Barr, J. O'Barr

Murdered along with his fiancTe on Halloween eve by a vicious street gang, Eric Draven returns from the dead and led by a crow, seeks vengeance on the killers who wronged him, in a new edition of the classic graphic novel. Reprint.

Girlfriend in a Coma

by Douglas Coupland

After making love for the first time, high school senior Karen Ann McNeil confides to her boyfriend Richard of the dark visions she's been recently suffering. It's only a few hours later on that snowy Friday night in 1979 that she descends into a coma. Nine months later she gives birth to a daughter, Megan, her child by Richard, the protagonist of this disturbingly funny novel. Karen remains comatose for the... (more)

Where I Was From (Vintage International)

Where I Was From (Vintage International)

by Joan Didion

In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours. A native Californian, Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to the state's ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic's often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California's... (more)

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Studs Terkel

“IT’S THE UNGUARDED VOICES HE PRESENTS THAT STAY WITH YOU. . . . Terkel’s interviews may not allay fears about death. But reading them certainly encourages life while we have it.” –The New York Times Whether it’s Working or The Great War , the legendary oral histories of Studs Terkel have offered indispensable insights into all areas of American life. Now, at eighty-eight, the Pulitzer Prize winner creates... (more)

How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter (Vintage)

How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter (Vintage)

by Sherwin B. Nuland

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... (more)

Adams Fall

by Sean Desmond

It's an especially bleak and gray October at the College, and the brooding protagonist of Adams Fall finds himself under the classic strains of first semester senior year-a thesis to write, grad schools and fellowships to apply for, a future to ponder, and a girlfriend to elude. A full, but manageable load for any bright-eyed, self-starting English honors student.But our protagonist resides in Adams House's... (more)

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die: Death Stories Of Tibetan, Hindu And Zen Masters

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die: Death Stories Of Tibetan, Hindu And Zen Masters

by Sushila Blackman

Death is a subject obscured by fear and denial. When we do think of dying, we are more often concerned with how to avoid the pain and suffering that may accompany our death than we are with really confronting the meaning of death and how to approach it. Sushila Blackman places death—and life—in a truer perspective, by telling us of others who have left this world with dignity. Graceful Exits offers valuable... (more)

Los Muertos Nos Hablan

by Francois Brune

Livings: The Strange Thing

by Carmen Marti?n Gaite

As compulsive as a thriller, this award-winning Spanish writer’s drama of broken dreams, lies, and the search for love is an intense meditation on the strange adventure of living.

Tirando Del Hilo/Pulling the Thread (Libros Del Tiempo / Books of the Time)Carmen Martin Gaite

Tirando Del Hilo/Pulling the Thread (Libros Del Tiempo / Books of the Time)

by Carmen Marti?n Gaite

The Gifts of Caregiving: Stories of Hardship, Hope, and Healing

The Gifts of Caregiving: Stories of Hardship, Hope, and Healing

by Connie Goldman

In this book, caregivers share their stories of caring for an ill, aging, or disabled loved one. Includes interviews with: * Dana Reeve (wife of actor Christopher Reeve) * Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter * Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel * Spiritual leader Ram Dass and others whose lives were forever changed by the caregiving experience.

The Gathering

by Anne Enright

In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come... (more)

American Spirit

by John Janda

AMERICAN SPIRIT tells the story of three days in the Arizona Territory, 1878, during which Mort Lewis is charged and tried for a murder which he doesn't know whether he committed or not. In the valleys of time between the events of those three days he reviews his entire life's course, searching for any semblance of sense and meaning. His mother dying when he was ten, his father never recovering,... (more)

Bonechiller

by Graham McNamee

WELCOME TO NOWHERE. Danny’s dad takes a job as caretaker at a marina on the shore of a vast, frozen lake in Harvest Cove, a tiny town tucked away in Canada’s Big Empty. If you’re looking for somewhere to hide, this is it. It’s the worst winter in years. One night, running in the dark, Danny is attacked by a creature so strange and terrifying he tries to convince himself he was hallucinating. Then he learns... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: death & dying

by Starhawk, the Reclaiming Collective, M. Macha nig

by Alice Sebold

by Stephen Levine

by Stephen Levine

by Thomas Lynch

by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

by James O'Barr, J. O'Barr

by Douglas Coupland

by Joan Didion

by Studs Terkel

by Sherwin B. Nuland

by Sean Desmond

by Sushila Blackman

by Francois Brune

by Carmen Marti?n Gaite

by Carmen Marti?n Gaite

by Connie Goldman

by Anne Enright

by John Janda

by Graham McNamee