Sociology: death and dying Books

Book SynopsisA beautiful and intimate exploration of first and last words?and the many facets of how language begins and ends?from a pioneering language writer.With our earliest utterances, we announce ourselves?and are recognized?as persons ready for social life. With our final ones, we mark where others must release us to death?s embrace. In Bye Bye I Love You, linguist and author Michael Erard explores these phenomena, commonly called ?first words? and ?last words,? uncovering their cultural, historical, and biological entanglements and honoring their deep private significance. Erard draws from personal, historical, and anthropological sources to provide a sense of the breadth of beliefs and practices about these phenomena across eras, religions, and cultures around the world.What do babies? first words have in common? How do people really communicate at the end of life? In the first half of the book, Erard tells the story of first words in human development and evolution, and how the attention to children?s early language?a modern phenomenon?arose. In the second half, he provides a groundbreaking overview of language at the end of life and the cultural conventions that surround it. Throughout he reveals the many parallels and asymmetries between first and last words and asks whether we might be able to use a linguistic understanding of end of life to discover what we truly want.

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Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Grave takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Allison C. Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However, graves turn out to be not always so subtle, reverent, or permanent. While the indigent and unidentified have frequently been interred in mass graves, a fate brought into the public eye during the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice today is not unlike burials in the potter's fields of the colonial era. Burial is not the only option, of course, and Meier analyzes the rise of cremation, green burial, and new practices like human composting, investigating what is next for the grave and how existing spaces of death can be returned to community life.Object Lessons Trade ReviewBeautifully written and filled with empathy and insight, Grave is a rumination over the how and why of human burial, complete with a slew of little known historical tidbits pulled together from years of the author’s fascination with the topic. It should be considered essential reading for anyone interested in funerary history, especially in the United States. * Paul Koudounaris, author of Heavenly Bodies, Memento Mori, and Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses *A thorough, insightful survey of the past, present, and future of the grave, and how humanity has grappled with the many problems and possibilities it represents. With compassion and an uncommon eye for detail, Allison Meier examines how the grave has functioned as a site of social inequality for centuries, and how a mixture of new technology and a revival of older practices may enliven cemeteries as sites of renewed community meaning. * Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses (2016) *Table of Contents1. The Grave: Our House of Eternity 2. Navigating Through Necrogeography 3. The Living and the Dead 4. The Privilege of Permanence 5. An Eternal Room of Our Own 6. No Resting Place 7. To Decay or Not to Decay 8. New Ideas for the Afterlife 9. Dead Space Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe landmark investigation into suicide and society—now in a new translation Émile Durkheim, one of the fathers of modern sociology, was the first to suggest that suicide might be as much a response to society as an act of individual despair. When he looked at social, religious, or racial groups that had high incidences of suicide, he discovered that abnormally high or low levels of social integration increase the likelihood of suicide. More than a century after its initial publication, Durkheim's groundbreaking work continues to fascinate and challenge those seeking to understand one of the least understandable of human acts.

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Book SynopsisThis book gives insights into the pain and suffering involved when people are grieving for someone who has committed suicide, but it also offers hope without diminishing the significance of the suffering involved. As such, it has a lot to offer, and is therefore to be welcomed.'- Well-Being'This book provides deep and valuable insight into the experiences of "suicide survivors" - those who have been left behind by the suicide of friend, family member or loved one.'- Therapy Today'The personal stories are full of pathos interest and will clarify where the death leaves those left behind. The list of self-help groups is world wide and it will be useful that you can point the bereaved and traumatized in the right direction.'- Accident and Emergency Nursing Journal'The authors describe powerfully the effect of suicide on survivors and the world of silence, shame, guilt and depression that can follow. Author Christopher Lake is a suicide survivor and co-author Henry Seiden is an experienced therapist and educator.They use sensitive and unambiguous language to provide an understanding of what it is like to live in the wake of suicide and the struggle to make sense of the world. They also look at how survivors might actively respond to their situation, rather than being passive victims. This book should be read by any professional who is likely to come into contact with people affected by suicide.'- Nursing Standard, October 2007'The book is well written and relevant to both survivors and professionals concerned for the welfare of those bereaved by suicide.'- SOBS (Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide) Newsletter'Silent grief is a book for and about "suicide survivors," defined as people who have experienced the death of a friend or relative through suicide, and for anyone who wants to understand what survivors go through. The book explains the profound, traumatic effect suicide has on individuals bereaved in such circumstances. Using verbatim quotes from survivors it explains how they experience feelings of shame, guilt, anger, doubt, isolation and depression. This book provides good insight into the experience of individuals affected by suicide and can be a useful resource to anybody working with such people - be it prisoners who have lost someone close through suicide or the family of a prisoner following a self-inflicted death in prison.- National Offender Management Service. Safer Custody News. Safer Custody Group. May/June 2007Silent Grief is a book for and about "suicide survivors" - those who have been left behind by the suicide of a friend or loved one.Author Christopher Lukas is a suicide survivor himself - several members of his family have taken their own lives - and the book draws on his own experiences, as well as those of numerous other suicide survivors. These inspiring personal testimonies are combined with the professional expertise of Dr. Henry M. Seiden, a psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist.The authors present information on common experiences of bereavement, grief reactions and various ways of coping. Their message is that it is important to share one's experience of "survival" with others and they encourage survivors to overcome the perceived stigma or shame associated with suicide and to seek support from self-help groups, psychotherapy, family therapy, Internet support forums or simply a friend or family member who will listen.This revised edition has been fully updated and describes new forms of support including Internet forums, as well as addressing changing societal attitudes to suicide and an increased willingness to discuss suicide publicly.Silent Grief gives valuable insights into living in the wake of suicide and provides useful strategies and support for those affected by a suicide, as well as professionals in the field of psychology, social work, and medicine.Trade ReviewA well-done, very readable work for virtually all populations; highly recommended. -- Reviewed on Metapsychology Online ReviewsThis book is intended specifically neither for suicide survivors nor for professionals, yet it is well-suited to both audiences. Survivors will definitely find kinship - if not comfort - in the many personal stories featured here; they are also likely to feel less isolated and more accepting of their emotional reactions upon learning that they are not alone. Similarly, mental health professionals will benefit by gaining greater insight into and compassion for their clients who are suicide survivors. Overall, a well-done, very readable work for virtually all populations; highly recommended. -- Metapsychology Online ReviewsTable of ContentsPreface to the Revised Edition. Part One: The Short Term: "What's Happening to Me?" Introduction: Lukas's Story. 1. What Happens to the Survivor After Someone Commits Suicide. 2. Emotional Reactions to Suicide. 3. A Family's Story. Part Two: The Long Run: "What's Going to Happen to Me?" 4. The Bargain: A Deal We Make with Life. 5. Bargains: The Long Good-bye. 6. Bargains: Scapegoating. 7. Bargains: "I Am Guilty; I Am a Victim." 8. Bargains: Cutting Off. 9. Bargains: A Miscellany. 10. The Saddest Bargain: "Because You Died, I'll Die." 11. The Grand Bargain: Silence. 12. Reactions to an Adolescent's Suicide. Part Three: Giving Help and Getting Help: Listening and Talking. 13. Responding. 14. Giving Help by Listening. 15. Getting Help by Talking. 16. Talking with Children. 17. Living with Suicide: Some Stories About Responding. Epilogue: Lukas's Story: A Personal Summary. Notes. Appendix: Where to Find Self-Help Groups. Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisExplores the extraordinary states of expanded consciousness that arise during comas, both positive and negative Every day around the world, thousands of people are placed in medically-induced comas. For some coma survivors, the experience is an utter blank. Others lay paralyzed, aware of everything around them but unable to move, speak, or even blink. Many experience alternate lives spanning decades, lives they grieve once awakened. Some encounter ultra-vivid nightmares, while others undergo a deep, spiritual oneness with the Universe or say they have glimpsed the Afterlife. Examining the beautiful and disturbing experiences of those who have survived comas, Alan and Beverley Pearce explore the mysterious levels of consciousness this near-death experience unlocks. They demonstrate how a key element of the brain is switched off by coma-inducing sedatives, allowing the mind to break free from the body and experience a greater expansion of consciousness. Rev

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Book Synopsis'This isn’t a grisly book; it is sharp, angry, punchily philosophical and often funny. It basically invents a new type of lifestyle aspiration: deathstyle.' The Times 'Callender’s joyous, thought-provoking book is an account of how his own early encounters with bereavement led to him becoming a new kind of undertaker.' Daily Mail 'Part memoir, part rant against the traditional funeral business, part manifesto, part just musing on death and facing it with compassion and courage. It’s lovely and thoughtful and may make you rethink a few things.' The Guardian ‘This book is a great work of craft and beauty.’ Salena Godden ‘This compelling personal story of a pioneering punk undertaker is a moving revelation.’ Love Reading ‘Inspiring and unforgettable.’ John Higgs, author of William Blake vs the World Death has shown me...the unbreakable core of love and courage that lies at the heart of what it means to be human. Ru Callender wanted to become a pioneering undertaker in order to offer people a more honest experience than the stilted formality of traditional ‘Victorian’ funerals. Driven by raw emotion and the unresolved grief of losing his own parents, Ru brought an outsider, ‘DIY’ ethos to the business of death, combined with the kinship and inspiration he found in rave culture, social outlaws and political nonconformists. Ru has carried coffins across windswept beaches, sat in pubs with caskets on beer-stained tables, helped children fire flaming arrows into their father’s funeral pyre, turned modern occult rituals into performance art and, with the band members of the KLF, is building the People’s Pyramid of bony bricks in Liverpool – all in the name of creating truly authentic experiences that celebrate those who are no longer here and those who remain. Radical, poignant, unflinchingly real and laugh-aloud funny, What Remains? will change the way you think about life, death and the human experience.Trade Review‘This book is great work of craft and beauty, truth and humanity, heart and soul. I believe it could be used as a teaching tool and as a comfort. I find Callender’s approach to this huge subject deeply loving and moving, but also revolutionary in spirit and courageous.’ Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death‘This moving, angry and funny book isn’t just about an odd career ushering people off to join the Silent Majority, but a beautiful guide to how to live, grieve and remember well.’ Luke Turner, author of Out of the Woods; co-founder, The Quietus‘A remarkable book. One of the most important books of our age. It had me laughing and crying by turns, sometimes both at the same time, and each page brought a new revelation, a new insight, a new understanding of what it means to be human in this beautiful world, in this strange moment we are passing through. ‘It's a book destined to join the greats of counterculture nonfiction, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Cosmic Trigger and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.’ CJ Stone, author of Fierce Dancing‘What Remains? is a profound and vital book that reads less like a memoir and more like a confession. As honest, terrifying and truthful as a mirror at midday, it embraces life and death equally and is too compassionate to flinch. Inspiring and unforgettable.’ John Higgs, author of William Blake vs the World‘Rupert Callender’s compelling personal story brings us face to face with what he describes as “the sharp edge, where life cuts into death”: a place our society keeps discreetly under wraps, but which we will all visit sooner or later. An exquisitely sensitive, eloquent and courageous guide to its mysteries and terrors, its ordinariness and its humanity.’ Mike Jay, writer and cultural historian‘If there is one book you should read when death comes knocking or you get the sudden urge to build a crop circle in the middle of the night, then this is that book. ‘I was lucky...lucky because when my kid brother died suddenly and shockingly, The Green Funeral Company were the local undertakers in his hometown; they even knew him. ‘They took me to their forest HQ at Dartington Hall, where Simon was laid out on a funeral bier in their chapel of rest like some medieval king. ‘Later, in the front office by the fire, we talked about building pyres and pyramids in a forest clearing. ‘In the end, Simon’s funeral was simple, and better for it. ‘From crop circles to the Gates of Hell and back again, Ru’s book will be your guide.’ Jimmy Cauty, The JAM’s, K2 Plant Hire‘A truly extraordinary book. It is like nothing else I've ever read, or thought I needed. Heartful of the ferocious, transcendent power of love and wonder; it is deeply profound, funny, and wholly and radically moving. What Remains? reveals life in the presence of death, as alchemy; as glorious and thoughtful ritual. Bright and dark and glittering as a funeral pyre, its embers are lasting, life-affirming, life-changing, death facing and unflinching.’ Nicola Chester, Wainwright-longlisted author of On Gallows Down‘It's extraordinary. You'll laugh, you'll cry, your heart will break, your heart will shine, filled with love. You'll be changed. An instant classic.’ Rob Hopkins, author of From What Is to What If‘A fascinating insight into Life’s oldest ritual. Dead interesting.’ Rónán Hession, author of Leonard and Hungry Paul‘Rupert Callender takes us to the dark end of the street, but he does so with wit, beauty and no little experience. It’s a one-of-a-kind ride, filled with storytelling. This original and gutsy book will do a lot of good in the world.’ Martin Shaw, author of Smoke Hole‘Vulnerable, raw and moving, this is a book for anyone who strives to die, and live, in an emotionally authentic and honest way. Essential reading. Beautifully written.’ Louise Winter, progressive funeral director, coauthor of We All Know How This Ends‘I loved What Remains? Funny, demystifying, but mostly, deeply moving.’ Kathy Burke, director'Part memoir, part rant against the traditional funeral business, part manifesto, part just musing on death and facing it with compassion and courage. It’s lovely and thoughtful and may make you rethink a few things.' The Guardian'This isn’t a grisly book; it is sharp, angry, punchily philosophical and often funny. It basically invents a new type of lifestyle aspiration: deathstyle.' The Times

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Book SynopsisJohn Gray is most recently the acclaimed author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern, Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions and False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. Having been Professor of Politics at Oxford, Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale and Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, he now writes full time. His books and articles have been translated into over thirty languages. His selected writings, Gray's Anatomy, were published by Penguin in 2009.Trade ReviewThe most prescient of British public intellectuals * Financial Times *Gray has consistently anticipated the shape of things to come ... he teaches us that true humanism is to be found in uncertainty and doubt -- Will SelfThe closest thing we have to a window-smashing French intellectual -- Andrew MarrA visionary ... one of the most reliably provocative and heterodox voices in British intellectual life today * New Statesman *Gray is a philosophical maverick, a pricker of bubbles, a deflater of balloons, a true iconoclast for whom our chief competing accounts of existence - the religious and the humanist - are both fatally flawed * Globe and Mail *Deeply thoughtful, brilliantly narrated -- Raymond Tallis * Literary Review *A romp of a read ... John Gray is a connoisseur of human idiocy -- John Banville * Guardian *Our sharpest critic of utopian fantasies skewers the crazed but enduring dream of cheating age, time and death -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *John Gray, the counter-prophet who scorns all claims that humans can transcend the human condition ... You don't have to agree with Gray to enjoy the fireworks -- Marek Kohn * Independent *Elegant ... He is on to something important regarding the delusion that science consists of indefinite progress * Sunday Telegraph *Gray is an engaging writer, an entertaining historian and a controversialist whose opinions can never be taken for granted * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisWhen lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside favela.Trade Review"Makes a case for ethnography as an art form. . . . A compelling, if deeply disturbing, account of women in a Brazilian shantytown." * New York Times *"Hauntingly beautiful. . . . [The] richly detailed qualitative analysis has thoroughly convinced this reader, at least, of her arguments linking maternal behavior and child death." * American Anthropologist *"Simply breathtaking. Its controversial theme—that mother love as conventionally understood is a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as poor women in Brazil cannot, that their infants will live—is, in the best sense, illuminated by deconstructionist and feminist thought. The author's understanding of these lives on the edge is at times sympathetic, passionate, and sophisticated. But what makes the book as exciting to read as a good novel is her long-term interaction with a group of people that she clearly loves and the complete lack of the sense of the "other" that is so often found in anthropological writing. This work should have as much influence on studies of the relationship of women and children as did Margaret Mead's Growing Up in Samoa (1936) on the shaping of adolescence or Oscar Lewis's The Children of Sanchez (1961) on the cultural effects of poverty. Highly recommended." * Library Journal *"The compelling narrative investigates the everyday tactics of survival that people use to stay alive in a culture of institutionalized dependency ravaged by sickness, scarcity, feudal working conditions and death-squad "disappearances." * Publishers Weekly *"A shattering portrayal of life among the impoverished inhabitants of Alto do Cruzeiro ('Hill of the Crucifixion'), a shantytown in the city of Bom Jesus da Mata in northeastern Brazil's Pernambuco Province. . . . A stimulating, consistently engrossing contribution to the scientific understanding of a complex and tragic situation." * Kirkus Reviews *“Difficult to stop reading.” * Horizons Magazine *Table of ContentsPrologue: Sugar House Introduction: Tropical Sadness Chapter 1: O Nordeste: Sweetness and Death Chapter 2: Bom Jesus: One Hundred Years Without Water Chapter 3: Reciprocity and Dependency: The Double Ethic of Bom Jesus Chapter 4: Delirio de Fome: The Madness of Hunger Chapter 5: Nervoso: Medicine, Sickness, and Human Needs Chapter 6: Everday Violence: Bodies, Death, and Silence Chapter 7: Two Feet Under and a Cardboard Coffin: The Social Production of Indifference to Child Death Chapter 8: (M)Other Love: Cultue, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking Chapter 9: Our Lady of Sorrows: A Political Economy of the Emotions Chapter 10: A Knack for Life: The Everyday Tactics of Survival Chapter 11: Carnaval: The Dance Against Death Chapter 12: De Profundis: Out of the Depths Epilogue: Acknowledgments and Then Some Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisSharing our stories has the power to set us free. InThe Power of Sharing, members of the i understand community, an organization dedicated to brain health and suicide prevention, open up about how mental illness has touched their lives. Challenging the stigma around mental health, over a dozen brave authors share their truth in these pages. Readers will find comfort and companionship in their stories of pain, difficult choices, betrayal, grief, and heartache. In the words of i understand founder Vonnie Woodrick, ?Speak up. Speak out. Share your story with a brave and honest face, because when you do, you may never know the difference it can make in someone else?s life?or better yet, your own.?

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Book SynopsisThe first volume to use southern cemeteries to interrogate and analyse southern society and the construction of racial and gendered hierarchies from the antebellum period through the dismantling of Jim Crow.Trade ReviewThis volume takes cemetery and gravestone studies in an entirely new direction. The chapters are well written and the volume is thoughtfully organized. Although the South is truly distinctive, I wish every culture region had a volume like this. . . . This is more than a simple scholarly work. It is a book that changes the conversation." - Richard Veit, coauthor of The Archaeology of American Cemeteries and Gravemarkers

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Book SynopsisA fascinating exploration of the social meaning of digital deathFrom blogs written by terminally ill authors to online notes left by those considering suicide, technology has become a medium for the dead and the dying to cope with the anxiety of death. Services like artificial intelligence chatbots, mind-uploading, and postmortem blog posts offer individuals the ability to cultivate their legacies in a bid for digital immortality. The Digital Departed explores the posthumous internet world from the perspective of both the living and the dead. Timothy Recuber traces how communication beyond death evolved over time. Historically, the methods of mourning have been characterized by unequal access to power and privilege. However, the internet offers more agency to the dead, allowing users accessibility and creativity in curating how they want to be remembered. Based on hundreds of blog posts, suicide notes, Twitter hashtags, and videos, Recuber examines the ways we die online, and the dTrade ReviewThe Digital Departed offers the first comprehensive treatment of death and dying online through the voices of those who have passed. At times moving and always beautifully written, the book is at once a theory of self in the digital age and a focused statement on the nature of life, death, community, and society. * Jenny L. Davis, author of How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things *An innovative and timely study of digital approaches to commemorating, coping with, and avoiding death. Timothy Recuber manages to link seemingly disparate rituals and activities where the digital, ephemeral, and algorithmic meet questions of power, selfhood, and ontological frailty. Highly recommended. * Karla A. Erickson, author of How We Die Now: Intimacy and the Work of Dying *Uncovers a compelling web of complex relationships among digital technologies, broad cultural shifts, and the most intimate of human experiences, death. At once peculiar and profound, it is a memorable read bound to leave readers doing some digital soul searching. * Sarah Sobieraj, author of Credible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy *Recuber’s exploration of death-related digital platforms is an exemplary work of digital sociology, which combines classical sociological theory with empirical work on a variety of technologies. I look forward to using this accessibly written book in my sociology classes. * Jessie Daniels, author of Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It *“The Digital Departed is a valuable book that presents many moving stories about the way that our digital life foreshadows our biological departure. The author’s engagement with classical and modern sociological theory will be appreciated by scholars and appeal to readers of all stripes.” * Nature *The author sheds lights on the advancement in technology that have revolutionized individuals’ ways of discussing, viewing, and confronting death. The deceased are endowed with chances to take control of their own life and conquer death through constructing and reconstructing the self in the digital age... Ultimately, this volume emerges as an indispensable resource for scholars in the field of social sciences, linguistics, and social media studies. * The Social Science Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe philosopher Michel de Montaigne said that facing our mortality is the only way to learn the ‘art of living’. This book asks what we can learn from COVID-19, both as individuals and collectively as a society.Written during the first and second lockdowns, Everything must change offers philosophical perspectives on some of the most pressing issues raised by the pandemic. It argues that the pandemic is not a misfortune but an injustice; that it has exposed our society’s inadequate treatment of its most vulnerable members; that populist ideologies of post-truth are dangerous and potentially disastrous. In considering these issues and more, the book draws on a diverse range of philosophers, from Cicero, Hobbes and Arendt to prominent contemporary thinkers.At the heart of the book is a simple argument: politics can be the difference between life and death. With careful reflection we can avoid knee-jerk decision making and ensure that the right lessons are learned, so that this crisis ultimately changes our lives for the better, ushering in a society that is both more compassionate and more just.Trade Review‘The global pandemic has made us think about a lot of issues that we don’t normally pay much attention to. Are older people more expendable than younger people? When and why should we trust politicians or scientists? Is lockdown fair? Philosophy can’t cure COVID-19, but in this serious-minded yet accessible book, Vittorio Bufacchi shows how it can help us get our heads around the many issues the pandemic raises in our daily lives.’Helen Beebee, Samuel Hall Professor of Philosophy, University of Manchester‘This is a fine, sensitive and thought-provoking discussion, taking readers well beyond COVID-19 into deep concerns about current socio-political moral stances. The book deserves to be read by all those worried about the injustices, sufferings and misperceptions underlying our society; it deserves all the more to be read by those who complacently lack those worries.’Peter Cave, author of The Myths We Live By: A Contrarian's Guide to Democracy, Free Speech and Other Liberal Fictions'Timely and insightful, Bufacchi’s wonderfully written Everything must change is a testament to just how good (and important) public philosophy can be. Drawing from philosophy’s best minds (including his own), Bufacchi guides the reader through eight essential lessons from the coronavirus pandemic, with a strong emphasis on how the virus highlights entrenched social injustices. The book’s short chapters and accessible prose will be welcomed by readers of all backgrounds, particularly those who are new to the field. I wholeheartedly recommend Everything must change to anybody who is interested in bringing about a fairer world.'Jack Symes, The Panpsycast -- .Table of Contents1 Coronavirus and philosophy 2 COVID-19: injustice or misfortune? 3 Old age in the time of coronavirus 4 Life under lockdown: nasty, brutish and short?5 Is COVID-19 bad for populism? 6 COVID-19, fake news and post-truth 7 COVID-19, experts and trust 8 Normal People, normalised violence 9 Justice after COVID-19 Epilogue: a year of COVID-19Index

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a detailed and sensitive account of how parents experience different forms of baby loss, and subsequently make decisions about post-mortem examination. It also analyses some of the challenges professionals face when working in this highly sensitive field of medicine. It draws on data from an ESRC award-winning UK based study on the development of minimally invasive post-mortem to examine a range of sociologically pertinent issues relating to: ‘trauma’ ‘emotions’, ‘decisions’, ‘care’ ‘technology’ ‘memory’ and the role of ‘social and biological relationships’. By shedding light on this taboo aspect of healthcare, the book provides a highly original contribution to sociology, offering a comprehensive analysis of some of the most pressing concerns in the field to date.Trade Review'By shedding light on this taboo aspect of healthcare, the book provides a highly original contribution to the sociology of emotions, medical sociology, death and dying studies and science and technology studies. It is a book that I wholeheartedly recommend to further advance understanding of perinatal bereavement and post-mortem care.'Dr Kerry Jones, Senior Lecturer in End-of-Life Care, The Open University -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Trauma2 Decisions3 Technology4 Emotions5 Care6 Memory7 RelationshipsConclusion: Life after deathReferences

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Book SynopsisA guidebook for communicating with the departed and gaining first-hand knowledge of life beyond death• Reveals that the easiest way to communicate with the departed is through dreams• Offers methods for helpful and timely communication with deceased loved ones• Provides powerful Active Dreaming practices from ancient and indigenous cultures for journeying beyond the gates of death for wisdom and healingWe yearn for contact with departed loved ones. We miss them, ache for forgiveness or closure, and long for confirmation that there is life beyond physical death. In The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead, Robert Moss explains that we have entirely natural contact with the departed in our dreams, when they come visiting and we may travel into their realms. As we become active dreamers, we can heal our relationship with the departed and move beyond the fear of death. We also can develop the skills to function as soul guides for others, helping the dying to approach the last stage of life with courage and grace, opening gates for their journeys beyond death, and even escorting them to the Other Side.Drawing on a wealth of personal experience as well as many ancient and indigenous traditions, Moss offers stories to inspire us and guide us. He shares his extraordinary visionary relationship with the poet W. B. Yeats, whose greatest ambition was to create a Western Book of the Dead, to feed the soul hunger of our times. Moss teaches us the truth of Chief Seattle’s statement that "there is no death; we just change worlds."

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Book SynopsisBeing able to offer support to the bereaved is an important part of many frontline professions, such as nurses, teachers, funeral directors and anything in between. Yet very little theoretical information about grief has filtered down into mainstream knowledge, and what has is often misinterpreted. Giving an accessible introduction to modern day grief theory, this book is the perfect guide to grief for counsellors, anyone wishing to support the bereaved, or the griever curious to how their grief works. Debunking commonly believed myths with information on how grief can vary from person to person, advice on communicating with the bereaved and details on the different kinds of grief, this book is an essential read for anyone working with the bereaved.Trade ReviewFor all grief workers - practitioners, volunteers, friends and family - Caroline's narrative is a light to guide us through what can be the dark and confusing landscape of grief. -- from the Foreword, Dr Jennifer Dayes, Counselling PsychologistCaroline Lloyd has written a definitive guide to grief and grieving. By explaining the history of grief and the cultural and political impact on how we grieve, the book gives a useful social context for how we grieve today. Importantly the book also explains the origin of many of the myths surrounding the grieving process, creating a space for a far better understanding of the topic. Grief is not a definable process, nor is there a right and wrong way to grieve. There is no roadmap. However this book will help those who are grieving as well as the people who are supporting them understand how to navigate and communicate through grief and how to reach out to others. -- Tracey Bleakley, CEO, Hospice UKThis book provides a comprehensive introduction to the way that grief works, as well as guidance on how to support those who are grieving. It considers what grief is, exploring the evolution of theories of grief in different social and historical contexts. The author considers whether grief is 'traumatic' or a mental health problem. I found the book to be particularly helpful in normalising various approaches to grieving... the book may prove useful not only to counsellors and therapists who are beginning to work with bereaved clients, but also to clients and to their loved ones who are trying to support them. -- Counselling and Psychotherapy JournalTable of Contents1. What is Grief? 2. What do you say to the bereaved? 3. What is the best way to grieve? 4. Is grief 'traumatic' or a mental health problem? 5. How do you support the bereaved? 6. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisDeath is universal. It will meet us all. But it’s also a practical problem – what do we do with dead bodies? The Viestads live by a cemetery and are daily spectators of its routines, and their fascination with burials led them to dig deep to examine our relationship with the dead. Taking us on a journey through the world and the past, they explore how the deceased are honoured and cared for, cremated and buried. From archaeological sites in Spain, Israel and Russia to Ghana’s fantasy coffins and environmentally friendly burials, and from cremations without fire to turning our dearly departed’s ashes into diamonds, this empathetic and enthralling work is for anyone who knows their turn is coming, but who’d like a good book for the journey.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Death Is for Everyone Chapter 1: In the Beginning There Was the Funeral Chapter 2: Death as a Practical Problem Chapter 3: Packed in Plastic Chapter 4: The Business of Death Chapter 5: Choosing a Coffin Chapter 6: Dust to Dust Chapter 7: Up in Smoke Chapter 8: Piecemeal and Divided Chapter 9: A Monument to the Dead Chapter 10: The Empty and Nameless Grave Chapter 11: Death as Jewelry Chapter 12: Living with the Dead Sources Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisMusic is often our companion when dealing with the incomprehensibility of loss, and yet death and dying are topics that are rarely discussed or analysed in the academic space, especially in combination with music studies. This edited collection examines several ways in which diverse music cultures and societies imagine, express and provide a means of coping with death, grief and remembrance. Written from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including both personal essays and academic studies, the nine chapters are divided into three subsections focusing respectively on mourning, underground scenes, and performance. The authors speak to the multifarious and complex ways in which music accompanies, supplements, and complements aspects of death and dying, whether this is the death of a loved one, or a celebrity from popular culture. The book cuts across disciplines such as musicology, death studies, funeral studies, cultural studies, media studies, celebrity studies, sociology, anthropology and theology, and includes perspectives from Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.Table of ContentsSection One. Music and Mourning Chapter 1. Funeral Music Between Heaven and Earth; Janieke Bruin-Mollenhorst Chapter 2. On the Funeral and Bereavement Rituals Depicted in Folk Songs: 'The Folk Requiem' by Adam Strug and Kwadrofonik; Marek Jeziński Chapter 3. The Posthumous Nephew: An Auto-ethnographic Exploration of Belated Mourning and Fresh Divinations; Gary Levy Section Two. Underground Scenes, Alternative Music and Transformation Chapter 4. You're Nothing: Punk and Death; David Gracon Chapter 5. Healing the Mother Wound: Metal Performance and Grief Management; Nachthexe Chapter 6. Bienvenue au Canada: The Nonlanguage of Music and Dreams; Brendan Dabkowski Section Three. Performing Death Chapter 7. The Vision of Death: Time and Temporality; Sílvia Mendonça Chapter 8. Music and Embodied Movement: Representations of Risk and Death in Contemporary Circus; Jenny Game-Lopata Chapter 9. Mercury's Message to Go On With the Show; Marie Josephine Bennett

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Book SynopsisWith 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.Trade Review"Wolfelt states his desire to respect each person's pace, to respect individuality and to offer sensitive support" - Cruse Bereavement Care, Winter 2004.

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Book SynopsisWhen faced with the prospect of death - one's own or someone else's - there is often little time to prepare. This compact booklet is written for anyone who has to deal with death and needs information quickly. It is also for those who wish to be ready in advance. Crossing the Threshold presents a wealth of easily-digestible guidance - both practical and spiritual - on all aspects of death and dying. Writing from the perspective of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual philosophy, the authors suggest ways of coping with the time leading up to death and also the period afterwards. They examine different circumstances of death and offer advice on practical questions such as the arrangement of funerals, laying out of the body, legal requirements and wills. They also suggest how those who remain on earth can continue to relate to the departed souls of the deceased. In addition the authors helpfully clarify Steiner's approach to the question of how funerals should be conducted, and in particular how his advice relates to both members of the Christian Community and the Anthroposophical Society.

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Book SynopsisWe live in a society where people struggle to look death in the eye. Death has become the territory of professionals and we rarely see a dead body, unless it is someone very close to us. Death has become hidden, and so more traumatic. This book shows that, if we start talking openly about death, it can change the way we live. It is a collection of stories and images about death, dying and bereavement. People from all walks of life share their experiences and what they have learned from accompanying others. Heartbreaking, angry, questioning and contradictory - laugh-aloud funny, even - the stories illuminate, inspire, reassure and inform. They are accompanied by commentaries from professionals working in end-of-life planning, health, bereavement and funeral care.Trade Review'Telling stories is fundamental to enabling people to find meaning in life and its losses. By bringing together so many people's first-hand experiences of death and dying with the wisdom and knowledge of those who work in the "death industry", this excellent book enables us to prepare better for the end of our own life's journey and make our own 'departures' as good as possible - for us and for those we love and who care for us. It is a book not just for the bereaved and dying but, as the title rightly says, for the living too.' Julia Samuel, psychotherapist, speaker and author of Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass / 'Nothing can fully prepare us for death, but this fabulous book is as close as we'll get. More than any other book I've read on the subject, and I've read many, this gives you directions and permission to have the death you want, either for yourself or for someone you love. The shared stories of death are wise, moving, useful and sometimes funny, and the expert commentaries offer excellent advice without being too prescriptive. Of course, we may not get the death we imagined - it can be a messy and unpredictable business. But this book gave me the sense of joining in and contributing to the most important conversation we may ever have. We are all going to die, but how we do it really matters. So let's start listening and talking...' Phil Hammond, NHS doctor, broadcaster, writer and comedianTable of ContentsIntroduction, 1. Getting ready, 2. The departure lounge, 3. Far too soon - prenatal deaths, stillbirths and abortions, 4. The wisdom of children - children and young people, 5. Out of the blue - suicide, disappearance, accidents and acts of violence, 6. Dementia stories, 7. It's not all about humans - deaths of animals, 8. What is dying like? 9. Now what? Just after a death 10. The funeral, 11. Grieving and remembering, 12. Death as a teacher, 13. The wider view, Postscript: Covid-19

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Book SynopsisSince the rise in deaths through Covid-19, there has been an increase in the need for personal, heartfelt ceremonies to celebrate the end of life. More and more people are questioning traditional ideas and realising that there are choices out there. Drawing upon her years of experience in working in the funeral industry, Sarah Chapman uniquely collates all the key information needed into a single comprehensive resource. This must-have guide will holistically support you from the moment someone dies to their funeral, while also empowering you to plan your own end-of-life care and ceremony. This step-by-step guide will take away the fear and uncertainty you may feel when faced with arranging the funeral of a loved one. It gives you back control in creating a fitting ceremony to celebrate their life, while also providing you with the tools to plan your own funeral in a way that is unique to you. It will help you to decide on the legacy you would like to leave for future generations, and you may even decide to plan your own living ceremony before you die.

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Book SynopsisMourners shake and pull their hair on reliefs and paintings from ancient Egypt. They took part in funerary ceremonies in ancient Egypt, contributing to the dead’s resurrection in the afterlife. Hair played a clear role in these rites. In this publication Maria Rosa Valdesogo describes the relation between hair and these rites, and the role hair played in death in ancient Egypt. This book is the publication of her Phd research about the Hair in the funerary ceremony of ancient Egypt.

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Book SynopsisLiving Through Loss provides a foundational identification of the many ways in which people experience loss over the life course, from childhood to old age. This second edition features new and expanded content on diversity and trauma, including discussions of gun violence, police brutality, suicide, and an added focus on systemic racism.Trade ReviewInvaluable. . . . It was written for social workers, but its insights, information, and practical application will be helpful for a range of professional workers who come into contact with people who are grieving a significant loss. * Journal of Social Work *This book is both a mine of information and provides an enormous amount of food for thought and reflection. Highly recommended. -- Roger Woodruff, director of palliative care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia * International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care News *Provides a comprehensive overview of grief theory, a review of losses experienced at different points in our lives, and evidence informed interventions. This timely text would provide an excellent introduction for practitioners working with bereaved people as well as be highly practical for a course textbook that students would be able to return to later once in practice. * Journal of Gerontological Social Work *This second edition of a splendid book explores the pervasiveness of loss in multiple forms (death and non-death). The authors examine loss in terms of a range of theoretical understandings and provide approaches to intervention that consider social, cultural, and environmental contexts and influences. This is a rich addition to the consideration of loss. -- Allan Cole, author of Good Mourning: Getting Through Your GriefAt a time when people are reeling from the many losses dealt by the pandemic, the second edition of this book could not be timelier. The life span approach taken and interventions provided for each life stage impart a wealth of critical information and guidance to current and future clinicians. -- Tracy A. Schroepfer, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLiving Through Loss is an important, timely, and compelling book that presents an evolved perspective of the universal experiences of loss and grief. This book is authentic, grounded, and written from the authors’ deep awareness and knowledge—leading the reader to a richer understanding of loss across the life course. -- Deborah Waldrop, University at BuffaloUniquely, the authors interweave professional and scholarly knowledge with personal experience. As a clinician and teacher, I found myself tallying up my own losses and acknowledging reverberations of old sorrows. The overall effect is a sense of being grounded in the midst of great complexity—a gift both to the scholar and the clinician. -- Wendy Lustbader, author of Counting on Kindness: The Dilemmas of DependencyTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Theoretical Perspectives on Grief2. The Grief Process and Types of Grief3. Resilience and Meaning-Making4. Loss and Grief in Childhood5. Interventions for Grieving Children6. Loss and Grief in Adolescence7. Interventions for Grieving Adolescents8. Loss and Grief in Young Adulthood9. Interventions for Grieving Young Adults10. Loss and Grief in Middle Adulthood11. Interventions for Grieving Midlife Adults12. Loss and Grief in Old Age13. Interventions for Grieving Older Adults14. Professional Self-Awareness and Self-CareNotesReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisHow the legalization of assisted dying is changing our lives. Over the past five years, medical aid-in-dying (also known as assisted suicide) has expanded rapidly in the United States and is now legally available to one in five Americans. This growing social and political movement heralds the possibility of a new era of choice in dying. Yet very little is publicly known about how medical aid-in-dying laws affect ordinary citizens once they are put into practice. Sociological studies of new health policies have repeatedly demonstrated that the realities often fall short of advocacy visions, raising questions about how much choice and control aid-in-dying actually affords. Scripting Death chronicles two years of ethnographic research documenting the implementation of Vermont's 2013 Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Author Mara Buchbinder weaves together stories collected from patients, caregivers, health care providers, activists, and legislators to illustrate how theyTrade Review"A beautifully written, thought-provoking ethnography that traces how patients, family caregivers, health care providers, activists, and legislators navigate this new world in which MAID is a legal option. . . . This book is essential reading for courses on death and dying, health care, and bioethics and will be eye-opening for those caring for terminally ill loved ones or grappling with their own life-or-death decisions. . . . Highly recommended." * CHOICE *“Buchbinder offers a compelling introduction to the complexity and inconsistency of ethical stances around life and death decision-making. In addition, she calls attention to the danger of reducing the forms of personhood and sociality produced through impending death to individual autonomy. And she shows the heart-wrenching consequences of unequal access to information and care in the United States. Scripting Death is a wonderful introduction to a pressing social issue.” * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *“​"Buchbinder’s work is the latest of several highly accessible health related ethnographies that represent a resurgence of anthropology in which real people talk rather than ‘discourse,’ questions are asked rather than ‘interrogated,’ and the term ‘reinscribe’ does not appear. A welcome development." * The Hastings Center Report *"Scripting Death provides a rich collection of Vermont stories about the challenges of organizing medical aid in dying, which serve as a microcosm of the broader problems faced by Americans in gaining access to health care." * Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Scripting Choice into Law 2. Making Death 3. Starting the Conversation 4. Reconciling Assistance with the Physician's Professional Role 5. Access and the Power to Choose 6. Choreographing Death Conclusion Coda Acknowledgments Appendix: About the Research Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the William A. Douglass Book Prize in Europeanist Anthropology, Society for the Anthropology of Europe""Bernstein uses history as well as the contemporary landscape to riase questions about the chaging status of the category "human" in increasingly medically engineered bodies. In wonderfully thought-provoking passages, she muses over the relationships between body and mind, biology and technology to rethink, enlarge and playfully undermine the understanding of life itself."---Kate Brown, Times Literary Supplement"A magic dwells. . . By holding these different viewpoints up against each other, [and] Bernstein shows us just how intricate the question of what makes us human really is."---Justine Buck Quijada, Politics, Religion, & Ideology

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Book SynopsisExploring the practice of living resurrection in ancient Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, Persian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Celtic, and Native American traditions, Freddy Silva explains how resurrection was never meant for the dead, but for the living--a fact supported by the suppressed Gnostic Gospel of Philip: “Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing.” He reveals how these practices were not only common in the ancient world but also shared similar facets in each tradition: initiates were led through a series of challenging ordeals, retreated for a three-day period into a cave or restricted room, often called a “bridal chamber,” and while out-of-body, became fully conscious of travels in the Otherworld. Upon returning to the body, they were led by priests or priestesses to witness the rising of Sirius or the Equinox sunrise. Silva describes some of the secret chambers around the world where the ritual was performed, including the so-called tomb of Thutmosis III in Egypt, which featured an empty sarcophagus and detailed instructions for the living on how to enter the Otherworld and return alive. He reveals why esoteric and Gnostic sects claimed that the literal resurrection of Jesus promoted by the Church was a fraud and how the Church branded all living resurrection practices as a heresy, relentlessly persecuting the Gnostics to suppress knowledge of this self-empowering experience. He shows how the Knights Templar revived these concepts and how they survive to this day within Freemasonry.Trade Review“Freddy Silva’s latest book is his most brilliant, scintillating, and inviting of all, a superb book on global initiation over thousands of years. In it he explores how ancient sacred cultures guided people to experience psychic death while alive--a ritual near-death experience. The Lost Art of Resurrection is a truly remarkable contribution to the quest of reviving lost wisdom and a must-read for anyone interested in spirituality and sacred sites.” * Barbara Hand Clow, author of Awakening the Planetary Mind *“This is a breakthrough work that topples not only church dogma but a century of pyramidiots stumped by Egypt’s elusively empty sarcophagi. No mummy there! No, it’s all about the round-trip journey to the spirit world and what our ancestors were really doing in their secluded temples. Fabulously illustrated, this important book is as much about the cosmogony of the ancient wisdomkeepers as it is about the hidden chambers of the human mind.” * Susan Martinez, Ph.D., author of The Mysterious Origins of Hybrid Man *Table of ContentsA Scottish Faery Tale 1 A Noble Tradition Recently Suppressed 2 The Myth of Resurrection 3 What Is Initiation? 4 Early Followers of The Way 5 The Otherworld of the Celts 6 Secrets of the Beehive 7 Fifty Shades of Gnosticism 8 The Secret Bridal Chamber 9 What Happens in the Middle East Stays in Central America 10 Geezers of Nazareth 11 Inside the Great Pyramid and into the Otherworld 12 Egyptian Initiation 13 How to Travel to the Otherworld and Back. Or, the Pyramid Texts 14 Pharaoh Has Left the Building 15 Green Men, White Knights 16 The Science of the Otherworld 17 The Metamorphosis of the Soul Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the 2016 George L. Mosse Prize, American Historical Association""Winner of the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, McGill University""Winner of the 2016 Stansky Book Prize, North American Conference on British Studies""Winner of the 2018 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute""Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award in European & World History, Association of American Publishers""2016 Gold Medal Winner in World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards""One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2015, selected by Alison Light""One of Flavorwire’s 10 Best Books by Academic Publishers in 2015""One of Flavorwire’s 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015""Hardly a sentence in Laqueur's long book is wasted."---John Gray, New York Review of Books"[A] sprawling meditation on mortal remains. . . . Laqueur offers an intricate historical narrative about the place the dead occupy in our lives. . . . The Work of the Dead is a methodologically bracing book."---Thomas Meaney, London Review of Books"Laqueur effectively shows that remains of the dead matter long after they decompose . . . [and his] engaging writing style enlivens this somber subject." * Library Journal *"The product of prodigious research and a subtle and sophisticated knowledge of history, anthropology, and philosophy, The Work of the Dead is as magnificent--and mindboggling--as it is monumental."---Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post"Enormously detailed and absorbing. . . . [A] remarkably supple and fascinating study, providing as it were the sociological and forensic underpinning of every ghost story ever told. . . . The Work of the Dead [is] both provocative and, you should pardon the term, lively (and readers should be sure not to miss the wonderfully argumentative end notes). It'll change the way you look at being dead and buried."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly"Laqueur's book is a monumental undertaking, teeming with so many absorbing anecdotes and so much vivid information that it can be read either compulsively or for an hour a day, just to keep in sight of the nub of our fears and the often romantic absurdity of our hopes and superstitions."---Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald"This massive, mesmerizing work contains much that's worth pondering." * Publishers Weekly *"Monumentally learned. . . . Laqueur's mastery of this history, and his limpid prose, make this a deeply engaging text."---Deborah Lutz, Times Higher Education"The Work of the Dead is an enormous, erudite, sprawling, garrulous, exhausting and brilliant piece of work. And it never forgets that thread of 'intuition and feeling'." * Economist *"A major work of scholarship on an undiscovered country, the land of the dead, which, as it turns out, has had major implications for the living. Laqueur's book. . . aims to show that our care for the dead (‘materially and imaginatively') marks ‘the sign of our emergence from the order of nature into culture.'"---Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire"[The Work of the Dead] is, quite simply, an extraordinary book. . . . [I]n short, this is the work of a great historian doing what we all do, only better: reckoning with death as we bide time until our own."---Darrin M. McMahon, Literary Review"Magnificent. . . . Dazzling in its scope, expertly researched and crafted,The Work of the Dead shows us what is important about our humanity and longings. It is also a page-turner and a terrific read."---Sharon R. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books"After being asked what he would like to have done with his body after he died, the Greek philosopher Diogenes replied that he wanted it thrown out for animals to devour. Thousands of years later, his answer can still shock. Thomas Laqueur explains why in his sweeping history of the way humans have grappled with death--an abstract terror made concrete by the bodies that remain when the dead have passed on. Combining anthropological reflections on the cultural functions of the dead with historical investigations of the shifting ways their bodies have been treated, Laqueur uses the stubborn resistance to Diogenes' provocation to explore the world the dead left behind."---Tim Shenk, Dissent"Poetically, powerfully sweeping across human history, Laqueur explores what the rituals of caring for the departed reveal about the living. Their story is ours; their absence shapes art and architecture, communities and civilizations. In every era and every culture, Laqueur finds the dead body imbued with meaning." * Swarthmore Bulletin *"Laqueur's venerable research all leads to one principal concluding thought, which is that while we can know logically that the human corpse is unrelated to the personality it once held, it is the most intimately connected material thing that is left of a life."---Juniper Quin, SevenPonds"Do the dead matter? This is the central question in this meticulously researched, all-encompassing exploration of our mortal remains. . . . In this intimate and often very personal reflection, Laqueur asserts that we need our rituals to serve the dead to smooth over the rent that is caused in the passing of those we love. . . This thought-provoking tome, erudite and finely written, seemingly encapsulates all past uttering on the dead in our fleetingly short lives."---Julie Peakman, History Today"[An] invariably fascinating treatment of a morbid subject." * Choice *"One meticulously argumented stroll through time and beliefs, highly attractive in its depth and far-reachingness. . . . Laqueur has succeeded where many others had not: he opened for us a tiny window on the concept of death and dying without violating historiographic objectiveness or trying to impose judgements or values."---Amir Muzur, European Journal of Bioethics"We look at the masterpiece with awe: How is it possible to do so much, to say so much about the dead in so many societies over such a broad sweep of time, even in a book as capacious as this?"----Annette Becker, American Historical Review"The Work of the Dead is packed with information, surprises, unaccustomed lore and learning, and Laqueur shows throughout a sturdy curiosity, as he digs unflinchingly around and into his chosen topic."---Marina Warner, London Review of Books"Monumental." * New English Landscape *"Laqueur brings prodigious compassion, erudition, and independence of thought to his task: every page is instructive, whether he is discussing the pollution caused by crematoria, the problems of pauper burials, the belief that undressing a corpse and opening windows makes it easier for the soul to leave the body, or just the listing of the names of the dead."---David Ganz, The Review of Politics"Historians of death in particular should thus keep this book at hand. Richly illustrated, detailed and accessible, The Work of the Dead is infused with approximately 35 years of travel, conversations, discoveries in archives and personal experience. It invites all readers to think further about the role that the dead play in the way that we live."---Martin Robert, Mortality"This book is a monumental Magnum Opus covering the cultural history of how we are treated mortal remains. . . . This is surely the definitive treatment of the subject, a landmark and highly readable work."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

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Book SynopsisPROSE Award Finalist for Psychology and Applied Social WorkArgues that a range of behaviors such as murder-suicide, terrorism, and mass shootings are better understood as motivated by suicidal impulses than by homicidal onesMass shooters often display behaviors that strongly mirror the warning signs for suicide: lives led in isolation, intense personal suffering, disaffection, and struggle. Letters detailing why they did what they did paint pictures of intense misery and loneliness. As this book makes clear, private despair sometimes leads to social violence.In this groundbreaking work, Thomas Joiner offers a unified theory of suicide, making the case that many acts that appear homicidal are best understood primarily as suicidal. We must recognize that there are several forms of suicidal violence, some of which masquerade as other types of acts, including terrorism and murder. These include suicide-by-cop, suicide terrorism, murder-suicide, and runninTrade ReviewA must read for anyone who desires to understand the complex web of factors that contribute to violent behavior. For decades, scholars have argued that violence cannot be predicted. In The Varieties of Suicidal Experience, however. Joiner does just that -- by building on his decades of expertise and groundbreaking theory of suicide. -- Rheeda Walker, Author of The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental HealthIn The Varieties of Suicidal Experience Joiner manifestly displays his extraordinary scholarly gifts. . . . He shrewdly makes his points with beautifully crafted—and accessible—language brimming with compelling case examples that vividly illustrate his arguments. No one in the field of suicidology today thinks, reflects on, explores, and writes about the topic of suicide quite like Thomas Joiner. This extraordinary new book explores suicidal violence, in all its forms, displaying an intellectual acumen and the sage wisdom of one of the field’s most astute thinkers and singular scholars. -- David A. Jobes, Director of the Suicide Prevention Laboratory, The Catholic University of America, Washington DCJoiner builds on what is arguably history’s most scientifically tested, supported and impactful theory addressing suicidality, the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide. ITS has not only moved an entire field forward but literally reshaped it. Joiner's application across vexing problems like murder-suicide, suicide by cop, suicide terrorism, and physician-assisted suicide is impressive, incisive, and practically accessible. Not only do his clarity and precision improve our understanding of these troubling problems, but he crafts an explanatory narrative that allows us to work to coherently identify strategies, targeted interventions, and policies that offer hope of progress to reduce the tragedy of suicide and assuage the suffering of those affected. Once again, Joiner takes on some of the greatest challenges society faces today. The end result is that he helps us more accurately understand why these tragic things happen and opens the door for solutions. -- M. David Rudd, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and President Emeritus, University of Memphis

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Book Synopsis''A refreshingly original meditation... I wish I had written it myself'' Literary ReviewGraveyards are oases: places of escape, peace and reflection. Liminal sites of commemoration, where the past is close enough to touch. Yet they also reflect their living community - how in our restless, accelerated modern world, we are losing our sense of connection to the dead.Jean Sprackland - the prize-winning poet and author of Strands - travels back through her life, revisiting her once local graveyards. In seeking out the stories of those who lived and died there, remembered and forgotten, she unearths what has been lost.Trade ReviewA wide-ranging, unpredictable and refreshingly original meditation on a huge but widely ignored subject: the relationship between the living and the dead… Exhilarating… This is a lovely book: beautifully written, never lapsing into self-conscious ‘poet’s prose’, always a joy to read. I wish I had written it myself. -- Nigel Andrew * Literary Review *Cemetery tales, filled with fascinating details and told with a poet’s skill… Delightfully morbid… Sprackland roves about history, language, biology, architecture, entomology, iconography and much else in her quest for meaning… [and] the astonishing twist…should justify your reading These Silent Mansions in its entirety. -- Anthony Quinn * Guardian *Shot through with delightful digressions… There is a spare beauty to Sprackland’s prose… These Silent Mansions is a strange and mercurial book; hard to pin down, but even harder to forget. -- Lucy Scholes * i *Sprackland has the poet’s knack for atmosphere and a magician’s ability to conjure up other worlds. She is like a ghostly time traveller… Sprackland is particularly agile, though, at exploring the ways in which a graveyard reflects its community and how, with modern life, we are losing this sense of connection. -- Ann Treneman * The Times *Part social history, part personal meditation and wholly enchanting - as attentive to local and moving details as it is to the fact of mortality itself. -- Andrew Motion

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Book SynopsisIn this work, Fred C. Pampel looks at fertility, suicide, and homicide rates in 18 high-income nations to show how they are affected by institutional structures.

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Book SynopsisDespite the fact that we all die, humans do not share the same view of death. In Death: A Reader, Mary Ann G. Cutter explores prominent themes that emerge and reemerge in the history of ideas regarding the nature of death from prominent global perspectives that span ancient to contemporary discussions. Thirteen themes are presented in order to convey a sense of major views of death that are found in the philosophical and sacred literature of Asia, the Near and Middle East, and the West. Each chapter contains the context of the theme, primary source selections, reflections, and suggestions for further reading.Four features of this volume distinguish it from other philosophical texts on death. First, Cutter provides a culturally diverse selection of primary source readings on the nature of death. Second, along with the more traditional discussions of death, she provides discussion on emerging topics in death studiesnamely, medical immortality and digital immortality. ThiTrade Review"Death affects everyone, but it can be difficult to have a conversation about it. Death: A Reader is a way to begin that conversation, even if just with yourself. The book's goal is to compile different ideas about death, and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions." —Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine"This book is a stunningly comprehensive collection of readings, insightful analyses, and thoughtful questions and exercises on a broad range of topics related to death. It will be a tremendous resource for anyone who writes, teaches, or cares about death." —Ana Iltis, Wake Forest University"Death: A Reader offers culturally, conceptually, and temporally diverse readings that provide rich and profound ways to consider the inevitable." —Lisa Rasmussen, University of North Carolina, Charlotte“This book provides a fine introductory review of global understandings about death. Cutter includes primary source excerpts dating from 8000 BCE to 2016, including Eastern and Western sacred writings and philosophical thought.” —Choice"Death is an event that all human beings face in their lives, both vicariously in the deaths of other persons and personally in their own death. . . . Death: A Reader offers a good, culturally and philosophically balanced first point of entry to exploring various philosophical and religious perspectives on death." —Catholic Library WorldTable of ContentsPreface 1. Thinking About Death Part 1. The Nature of Death 2. Physical Disintegration 3. Psychological Disintegration 4. Reincarnation 5. Resurrection 6. Medical Immortality 7. Digital Immortality 8. An Existential Phenomenon of Life Part 2. The Value of Death 9.Bad or Good 10. To Be Feared or Not 11. To Be Grieved and How Part 3. The Choice of Death 12.To Be Hastened or Not: The Case of Suicide 13. To Be Hastened or Not: The Case of Treatment Refusal 14. To Be Hastened or Not: The Case of Physician-Assisted Suicide Part 4. The Lessons of Death 15. A Window into Life Glossary of Philosophical Terms References Notes

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Book SynopsisThe introduction of the continuing bonds model of grief near the end of the 20th century revolutionized the way researchers and practitioners understand bereavement. Continuing Bonds in Bereavement is the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art collection of developments in this field since the inception of the model. As a multi-perspectival, nuanced, and forward-looking anthology, it combines innovations in clinical practice with theoretical and empirical advancements. The text traces grief in different cultural settings, asking questions about the truth in our interactions with the dead and showing how new cultural developments like social media change the ways we relate to those who have died. Together, the book's four sections encourage practitioners and scholars in both bereavement studies and in other fields to broaden their understanding of the concept of continuing bonds.Trade Review"The concept of continuing bonds has proven to be a very influential one. This review of its contemporary significance is a superb piece of scholarship that will delight anyone interested in understanding the complexities of loss and grief. An impressive lineup of writers provides both breadth and depth. The editors have done an excellent job in producing an outstanding anthology that will be of lasting value."Neil Thompson, PhD, DLitt, professor, Wrexham Glyndwr University"Continuing Bonds in Bereavement is a large buffet covering various aspects of continuing relationships with deceased loved ones. Created by expert chefs, the dishes cover theory, therapeutic experiences (with transcripts that are very moving), forgiveness, after-death communications, religion, and culture. Choose what interests you. Digest. Learn. Grow."Lillian Range, PhD, professor of psychology and counseling, University of Holy Cross"A powerful concept demands extensive explanation and theoretical exploration. This encyclopedia-like volume does just that for continuing bonds and will serve as a benchmark reference for ongoing study and research."Douglas J. Davies, PhD, DLitt, Hon Dr Theol, professor in the study of religion, director of Centre for Death and Life Studies, Durham University"Finally, a pithy comprehensive synthesis of evolving bereavement theories, practices, and paradoxes inherent in the continuing bond paradigms. This timely anthology further equips therapists, educators, and even the grieving with diverse cultural and digital modes of expression applicable in our professional and personal lives."Sandra L. Bertman, PhD, FT, author, Grief and the Healing Arts: Creativity as TherapyTable of ContentsSeries Foreword Robert A. Neimeyer Prologue: A Personal History Dennis Klass List of Contributors 1. Introduction: Continuing Bonds—20 Years On Dennis Klass and Edith Steffen Section I: Overview of the Book 2. The Two-Track Model of Bereavement and Continuing Bonds Simon Shimshon Rubin, Ruth Malkinson, and Eliezer Witztum 3. Posttraumatic Growth and Continuing Bonds Richard Tedeschi, Ana Orejuela-Davila, & Paisley Lewis 4. How Continuing Bonds Have Been Framed Across Millennia Tony Walter 5. Continuing Bonds, Authorship, and American Cultural History Harold K. Bush Section II: Continuing Bonds and Clinical Contexts Subsection II.1: Innovations for Working with Continuing Bonds 6. Reconstructing the Continuing Bond: A Case Study in Grief Therapy Robert A. Neimeyer and An Hooghe 7. Remembering Relations Across the Years and the Miles Lorraine Hedtke 8. Working with Continuing Bonds from an Attachment Theoretical Perspective Phyllis Kosminsky 9. Externalized and Internalized CB in Understanding of Grief Samuel M.Y. Ho and Ide S.F. Chan 10. Forgiveness and Continuing Bonds Elizabeth A. Gassin 11. Reaching the Unspoken Grief: Continuing Parental Bond during Pregnancy Loss Bobo H.P. Lau, Candy H.C. Fong, and Celia H.Y. Chan Subsection II.2: Specific Perspectives for Working with Sense of Presence 12. Working with Welcome and Unwelcome Presence in Grief Jacqueline Hayes and Edith Steffen 13. The Potential Therapeutic Efficacy of Assisted After-Death Communication Julie Beischel, Chad Mosher, and Mark Boccuzzi Section III: The Truth Status & Reality Status of Continuing Bonds 14. Ontological Flooding and Continuing Bonds Jack Hunter 15. Considering Anomalous Events During Bereavement as Evidence for Survival Callum E. Cooper 16. Grief, Ritual and Experiential Knowledge: A Philosophical Perspective Anastasia Philippa Scrutton Section IV: Continuing Bonds in Cultural Contexts Subsection IV.1: Continuing Bonds’ Complex Roles in Cultures 17. Identity and Continuing Bonds in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Britain and Japan Christine Valentine 18. Evolving Roles in Research Exploring Communication About Grief: Meaning Making and Continuing Bonds Michael Robert Dennis and Adrianne Kunkel 19. Ancient Mesopotamian Remembrance and the Family Dead Renata MacDougal 20. Continuing Bond as a Double-Edged Sword in Bereavement? Candy H.C. Fong and Amy Y. M. Chow 21. Continuing Bonds with Native Culture: Immigrants' Response to Loss Hani M. Henry, William B. Stiles, and Mia W. Biran Subsection IV.2: A New Cultural Context – Social Media 22. Continuing Bonds and Social Media in the Lives of Bereaved College Students David Balk and Mary Alice Varga 23. Mourning 2.0: Continuing Bonds between the Living and the Dead on Facebook—Continuing Bonds in Cyberspace Melissa Irwin 24. Facilitation and Disruption of Continuing Bonds in a Digital Society Elaine Kasket Reflections and Conclusions: Going Forward with Continuing Bonds Edith Steffen and Dennis Klass

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Book SynopsisAn intelligent and sympathetic analysis of one of the true taboos of modern life.Trade Review'To write about suicide... to transform the subject into something beautiful - this is the foreboding task that Alvarez set for himself... he has succeeded' New York Times

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Book SynopsisExplores how we can deal with every kind of grief, revealing: how grief manifests itself in many ways, ranging from anguish, exhaustion, emptiness, resentment, longing, tension, confusion, sleeplessness and sometimes the temporary loss of the will to live; and what we should do mentally and physically to prepare ourselves for loss and bereavement.

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Book SynopsisThis book examines how legal institutions reify the value of death in the twenty-first century. Its starting point is that bio-technological innovations have extended life to such an extent that death has become an epistemological problem for legal institutions. It explores how legal definitions of death are subject to the governing logic of economisation, how legal technologies for registering a death reshape what kind of deaths are counted during a pandemic, and how technologies for recycling cadaveric tissue problematise the legal status of the corpse. The question that unites each chapter is how legal institutions respond to technologies that bring death before their laws. The book argues for an interdisciplinary approach, informed by the writings of Georges Bataille, Wendy Brown, Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault, to understand how legal epistemologies are increasingly disrupted, challenged, and countered by technologies that repurpose death to extend, nourish and foster human life. It contends that legal theorists and social scientists need to rethink doctrinal perspectives of law when theorising how law defines the moment of death, shapes what kind of deaths count, and recycles the debris of the dead. This book will appeal to a broad international readership with research interests in critical theory, political theory, legal theory or death studies; and it will be particularly useful for teachers and students who are searching for an accessible entry point to the study of the intersections between law and death.

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Book SynopsisSuicide is the third major killer of young people in the Western world, and in the closing decades of the twentieth century it reached epidemic proportions: around the world there has been a frightening surge in suicides committed by children, adolescents and young adults. Kay Redfield Jamison is herself a survivor of a nearly lethal suicide attempt which came after years of battling manic depression. Her survival marked the beginning of a life’s work to investigate mental illness and self-inflicted death, and she is now an internationally recognized authority on the depressive illnesses. In Night Falls Fast Dr. Jamison dispels the silence and shame that surround the subject of suicide and provides a better understanding of the suicidal mind and a chance to recognize the person at risk. She brings to the book not only wide scientific knowledge and clinical experience but also great compassion. In tracing the network of reasons underlying the phenomenon, she giveTrade Review‘An important, moving and informative book’ Guardian‘For anyone in any way connected with a potential suicide this book is essential reading: that means all of us’ The Times‘This is a lyrical, beautifully argued, deep and deeply troubling book’ Evening Standard‘A profound and impassioned book which will stand as the authoritative study of suicide for many years’ William Styron

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Book SynopsisBuilding on critical and contemporary theory, these essays address the multiple ways in which the Turkish regime controls its citizens through physical destruction, structural violence and exposure. The 12 case studies include counterinsurgency warfare, enforced disappearances, cemeteries, monuments, prisons, courts and the army.

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Book SynopsisA child''s suicide pitches you into a hellish place of fragmentary images, the deepest depression imaginable, efforts to destroy yourself, and an almost complete break with what''s happening in the world around you. That was my experience. I wish it upon no one. The essays of The Loneliest Places began as a chronicle of Rachel Dickinson''s life after her son''s suicide. The pieces became much more. Dickinson writes the unimaginable and terrifying facts of heartbreaking loss. In The Loneliest Places she tells stories from her months on the run, fleeing her grief and herself, as she escapes to Iceland and the Falkland Islandsas far as possible from the memories of her dead son, Jack. She frankly relates the paralyzing emotion that sometimes left her trapped in her home, confined to a single chair, helplessly isolated. The tales from these years are bleak and Dickinson''s journey home, back to her changed self and fractured family, is loneTrade ReviewDickinson's meditative style and use of metaphor elevate what might otherwise be simply a beautiful, detailed description of place, flora, and fauna to a much deeper study of what nature has to teach us about ourselves and our relationships. * Hippocampus Magazine *An elegant memoir. * Pyschology Today *Absorbing, thoughtful and thought-provoking, The Loneliest Places is an extraordinary testament to love and loss, a child's suicide and the grief that is life changing and could be soul destroying if note dealt with successfully. Exceptionally well written. * Midwest Book Review *Table of ContentsBeginning Autumn, Again One Night Thoughts You Have While at Your Son's Funeral Withdrawn Running Away Adirondack Anniversary Clara and Jack Sing a Duet Seeking Permission from Donald Hall Thoughts Guns in the Attic The People Who Stayed Train Robbers and Pinkertons Hope Is a Strange Invention Vertigo Thrown for a Loop Why I Stay The Ways in Which I Fall Rage Let Me Be Frank Angry at a Dead Son The Gentle Arts Mourning and Melancholia, Rejected Travel Pursuit of Aloneness December Snow Merry Effing Christmas Learning to Travel Give Up the Ghost Birding on Bleaker Island Speculation Fictional World What Would I Take If My House Was on Fire The Time Tim Went to Cuba Dreamworld Going to the Spiritualist Camp Searching The Dude Ranch Visitation Searching for Home in Italy The Pull of Water Change Minefields Soft Edges Called Back Lonely Jane at the End The Other Jack Gallagher Staying in a Ghost Town Anticipation Beside the Volcano Comeuppance Feeling Isolated Tim Writes Me a Letter The Truth about Selfishness The Present The Corncrake

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Book SynopsisAcross the United States, groups of grassroots volunteers gather in overgrown, systemically neglected cemeteries. As they rake, clean headstones, and research silenced histories, they offer care to individuals who were denied basic rights and forms of belonging in life and in death. Cemetery Citizens is the first book-length study of this emerging form of social justice work. It focuses on how racial disparities shape the fates of the dead, and asks what kinds of repair are still possible. Drawing on interviews, activist anthropology, poems, and drawings, Adam Rosenblatt takes us to gravesite reclamation efforts in three prominent American cities.Cemetery Citizens dives into the ethical quandaries and practical complexities of cemetery reclamation, showing how volunteers build community across social boundaries, craft new ideas about citizenship and ancestry, and expose injustices that would otherwise be suppressed. Ultimately, Rosenblatt argues that an ethic of

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Book SynopsisDeath in war matters. It matters to the individual, threatened with their own death, or the death of loved ones. It matters to groups and communities who have to find ways to manage death, to support the bereaved and to dispose of bodies amidst the confusion of conflict. It matters to the state, which has to find ways of coping with mass death that convey a sense of gratitude and respect for the sacrifice of both the victims of war, and those that mourn in their wake. This social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War places death at the heart of our understanding of the British experience of conflict. Drawing on a range of material, Dying for the nation demonstrates just how much death matters in wartime and examines the experience, management and memory of death. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in the social and cultural history of Britain in the Second World War.Trade ReviewWinner of the Social History Society Book Prize 2022'This thoughtful book reminds us that societies interpret mass death on rhetorical, discursive and mnemonic levels, but people also live with its harsh practicalities, as death intersects with lived everyday experience and emotion. This deeply significant book thus has much to teach both historians and a wider readership today.'Twentieth Century British History'Drawing on cultural histories of death, emotions, and mourning, and on extensive archival research, Noakes (Univ. of Essex, UK) examines how the British government and people responded to the deaths of over 260,000 members of the armed forces and over 60,000 civilians during WW II. She argues that it was crucial for the government to manage mass death in a respectful way so as to maintain the consent of the public and keep morale high, and to encourage citizens to control their emotions and remain stoic even as they faced a total war in which they and their loved ones were the targets. There are somber chapters on how civilians and soldiers died (crushed or eviscerated by bombs, burned in tanks, frozen in Arctic waters), were buried and mourned, and how the dead “work[ed] for the nation” as symbols of shared sacrifice and unity. When this “people’s war” ended, the emphasis was on looking ahead, not back, and on creating a better world rather than grand monuments for the dead. This perceptive study of wartime death, grief, and bereavement will be welcomed by students of WW II, Great Britain, and nationalism.--A. H. Plunkett, Piedmont Virginia Community CollegeSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association.'There is much here to interest scholars working on death and grief, and conceptions of selfhood or citizenship, as well as those working more generally on social, cultural, and emotional histories of modern warfare. At the current moment, as many individuals and communities continue to grapple with the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic, others may also find Noakes’ poignant history of what it means to live through periods of crisis and mass bereavement well worth a read.'Journal of Contemporary History 'A rich and multi-dimensional analysis of how war, death, and grief pervaded the lives of individuals and societies throughout the first half of the twentieth century is thus proffered here. Reading Dying for the Nation as 2020 draws to a painful close, it strikes me that there is much that may be gained from this thoughtful book in terms of understanding our own emotional codes and management of grief and loss in this last appalling year. Overall, Noakes’ new book is a pleasure to read and a real gift to anyone who teaches or researches the social and cultural history of Britain and the Second World War.'War in History -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: death, grief and bereavement in wartime Britain1 Shadowing: death, grief and mourning before the Second World War2 Feeling: the emotional economy of interwar Britain3 Planning: imagining and planning for death in wartime4 Coping: belief and agency in wartime5 Dying: death and destruction of the body in war6 Burying: the disposal of the war’s dead7 Grieving: bereavement, grief, and the emotional labour of wartime8 Remembering: remembering and commemorating the dead of warConclusion: the personal and the political Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDeath studies typically focus on the death of humans, overlooking the wider factors involved in social and natural processes around death. This edited volume provides an alternative focus for death studies by looking beyond human death, to reveal the complex interconnections among human and more than human creatures, entities and environments. Bringing together a diverse range of international scholars, the book sheds light on topics which have previously remained at the margins of contemporary death studies and death care cultures. Organised around three themes – Knowledge and Mediation, Care and Remembrance, and Agency and Power – this book pushes the boundaries of death studies to explore death and dying from beyond the perspective of a nature/culture binary.Table of ContentsIntroduction - Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Philip R. Olson Part I: Ontologies & Epistemologies 1. ‘Seeing for real’: Forensic Pathologists Testing the Demonstrative Power of Postmortem Imaging - Céline Schnegg, Séverine Rey, Alejandro Dominguez 2. Death at a Planetary Scale: Mortality’s Materiality in the Context of the Anthropocene - Philip R. Olson 3. Death in the Fields: Microbial ‘Destruction’ in Polluted Soils - Serena Zanzu 4. Can the Baltic Sea Die? An Environmental Imaginary of a Dying Sea - Jesse D. Peterson Part II: Care & Remembrance 5. Viral Flows and Immunological Gestures: Contagious and Dead Bodies in México and Ecuador during COVID-19 - Rosa Inés Padilla Yépez, Anne W. Johnson 6. Advertising the Ancestors: Ghanaian Funeral Banners as Image Objects - Isabel Bredenbroker 7. Dying Apart and Buried Together: COVID-19, Cemeteries, and Fears of Collective Burial - Samuel Holleran 8. Spirit Mediums at the Margins: Materiality, Death, and Dying in Northern Zimbaabwee - Olga Sicilia Part III: Troubling Agencies 9. Rehabilitate or Euthanize?: Biopolitics and Care in Seal Conservation - Doortje Hoerst 10. Troubling Entanglements: Death, Loss and the Dead in and on Television - Bethan Michael-Fox 11. Material Entanglements of the Corpse - Marc Trabsky and Jacinthe Flore 12. The Dead Who Would be Trees and Mushrooms - Hannah Gould, Tamara Kohn, Michael Arnold, Allison Fraser Concluding Discussion 13. Beyond the Norms - Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Philip R. Olson

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Book SynopsisA Sunday Times Bestseller March 2022 (Ireland)Soon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte's death would be washed away, the first drop in a downpour. Nobody knew it then but hers would be the last good funeral of the year.It was February 2020, when Ed O'Loughlin heard that Charlotte, a woman he'd known had died, young and before her time. He realised that he was being led to reappraise his life, his family and his career as a foreign correspondent and acclaimed novelist in a new, colder light.He was suddenly faced with facts that he had been ignoring, that he was getting old, that he wasn't what he used to be, that his imagination, always over-active, had at some point reversed its direction, switching production from dreams to regrets. He saw he was mourning his former self, not Charlotte.The search for meaning becomes the driving theme of O'Loughlin's year of confinement. He remembers his brother Simon, a suicide at thirty; the journalists and photographers with whom he covered wars in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, wars that are hard to explain and never really stopped; his habit of shedding baggage, an excuse for hurrying past and not dwelling on things.Moving, funny, and searingly honest, The Last Good Funeral of the Year takes the reader on a circular journey from present to past and back to the present: 'Could any true story end any other way?'Trade ReviewWar correspondent, father, husband, son, friend and grieving brother - Ed O'Loughlin has given us a powerful and unusual memoir. At times heartbreaking and often laugh-aloud funny, The Last Good Funeral is set to be among the very best of books for 2022. -- Christine Dwyer HickeyEd O'Loughlin is a natural storyteller, a good one, and he invites the reader right alongside in his honest search for meaning through reminiscence, memory and adventure. With precision and expertise, he probes past and present chapters of his life, all the while imparting his own brand of wisdom and humour. A great pleasure to read! -- Frances Itani, winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and author of DeafeningThe past is a revenant that haunts the present in this exquisite and startling memoir by Ed O'Loughlin. The Last Good Funeral of the Year is a witty, engaging, heartbreaking, and beautifully wrought tour through the workings of memory, all unearthed during the world's great period of lockdown stillness. The stories and their people will remain with you long after finishing this book. -- Emily Urquhart, Canadian author and memoiristThe Last Good Funeral of the Year is intelligent, funny, profound, painfully honest, beautifully written, and powerfully moving. Ed O'Loughlin is a writer who does brilliantly everything he turns his hand to; it's no surprise to find that his memoir is so unforgettably good. -- Kevin Power, author of White CityThis is a searing book, reminiscent of Joan Didion's masterpiece, "The Year of Magical Thinking." It wheels between the waypoints in O'Loughlin's life with remarkable dexterity, honesty and grace... What I found here was an exquisite portrait of grief * The Miramichi Reader *[A] brief and astonishingly frank memoir . . . Deftly and with increasing assurance, O'Loughlin weaves the tapestry of a life, pulling at the threads and dropped stitches of experience that have brought him to this difficult time and place . . .The account of his brother Simon's struggles with depression is achingly sad and beautifully rendered . . . O'Loughlin can be acerbic, self-deprecating and droll, often in the same paragraph. * Sunday Times Ireland *The Last Good Funeral of the Year by Ed O'Loughlin. It's one of the most unflinching memoirs you'll ever read. lt's an at-tirnes­ sad, at-times-funny excavation of SO-something years of living conducted during the Covid lockdowns. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after finishing it. * Sunday Independent *

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