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Books about mortality and death

4 replies

ShowYourVeracity · 24/02/2015 12:15

Can anyone suggest any good books about mortality and death? What I am looking for is books about approaches to mortality from an atheist point of view, philosophy of death, how to live your life in the face of mortality, that sort of thing. I don't mind if it touches on religious approaches - I am atheist but very interested in the history of religion, especially Christianity. Also I am trying to find an anthology of writings on death including writers such as Ancient Greeks, early Christians etc but can't find anything. And, I know this is non-fiction, but any suggestions for fiction dealing with death from this point of view gratefully received too.

I am going to read Levels of Life by Julian Barnes. Any more ideas please?

OP posts:
cdwales · 25/02/2015 10:51

To give you a context - an understanding of what death involves - I strongly recommend that you read 'How we die' by Sherwin B Nuland. He is an American doctor and just about the most wonderful humanitarian person!

His book is premised on the observation that we actually are almost totally ignorant about the process of death in our society and that ignorance is not useful practically or emotionally.

cingolimama · 25/02/2015 11:02

Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal"

Carl Watkins "Undiscovered Country" which might have more of a historical slant than you want, but is a terrific read

and this isn't a book, but a recent article by the extraordinary Olver Saks might be of interest.
nyti.ms/17XYO98

ShowYourVeracity · 25/02/2015 21:01

Thank you cdwales and cingolimama. I have ordered the Nuland and Gawande books from the library, they look just what I am after. I will try "Undiscovered Country" too. And thank you for the article link.

OP posts:
Figmentofmyimagination · 13/03/2015 15:54

I've just finished "we are our brains - from the womb to Alzheimer's" by dick swarb. On all the best seller tables at the moment. Although it has come in for a bit of flack from scientists for being too sweeping, lacking references and being too journalistic, one dimensional and know it all, it is actually a great book - v readable - I couldn't put it down - and as swarb is Dutch - the founder of the brain bank - he comes at it from the perspective of a right to die, which is interesting. Good chapters in whether belief in God - or any religion - is the result of your biology and social conditioning, the biology of near death experiences etc.
the book is the synthesis of years of answering readers' questions on the brain in a Dutch national newspaper.

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