A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

A hair-raising account about the ins and outs of practising forensic pathology in Africa As a medical detective of the modern world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal's chief goal is to bring perpetrators to justice. He has performed thousands of autopsies, which have helped bring numerous criminals to book. In Autopsy he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist, as well as some of the most unusual cases he's encountered. During his career, for example, he has dealt with high-profile deaths, mass disasters, death by lightning and people killed by African wildlife. Blumenthal takes the reader behind the scenes at the mortuary, describing a typical autopsy and the instruments of the trade. He also shares a few trade secrets, like how to establish when a suicide is more likely to be a homicide. Even though they cannot speak, the dead have a lot to say - and Blumenthal is there to listen.

In September 2018, Professor Sean Davison's peaceful life in the leafy suburbs of Pinelands, Cape Town is shattered. Arrested for the murder of Dr Anrich Burger, a once-fit athlete turned quadriplegic who begged Davison to assist him in ending his life in 2015, the unassuming academic and father of three now finds himself locked up in a prison cell.

Under investigation led by the Hawks, an additional two murders are added to the case for which he now faces a mandatory life prison sentence. Written in compelling detail, The Price of Mercy tracks the extraordinary journey that Davison embarks on to prepare for the gruelling legal challenge that lies ahead.

The desperate cries of many, begging for his assistance to help end their lives of suffering haunt him. Unwavering in his belief that we all have the right to die with dignity, Davison's selfless battle is made more bearable by his friendship with the late and great Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

A book that will change the way you see death.

Die geliefde skrywer Dana Snyman deel sy waarnemings en belewenisse van die vreemdste tye wat ons nog beleef het: Die boek begin triomfantelik met die Springbokke wat die Rugbywêreldbeker wen, en toegejuig word tydens optogte deur die hoofstede van ons land. Maar baie vinnig verander alles. Die koronavirus slaan toe, en die hele wêreld word onderstebo gekeer. “Dinge is anders nou, meneer, in die tyd van die gif,” soos ’n ou oom by die plaaslike kafee vir Dana vertel.

Dana beskryf die eerste veertig dae van die eerste inperking; dan ry hy trein om sy sterwende vriend in Gauteng te gaan groet. Hy skryf oor die treinrit, en ook oor die treine wat nie meer ry nie. Laastens praat hy met die mense wat die grootste gevaar loop ter wille van ander – die dokters en verpleegsters wat die siekes versorg. Dan kry hy self ook Covid19.

Dana se kenmerkende fyn waarneming maak In Die Tyd Van Die Gif ’n leesmoet. Daar is pyn en verlies, maar ook geloof en hoop. Dit alles met ’n goeie skeut humor.

Establishing a new set of international perspectives from around the world on and experiences of death, disposition and remembrance in urban environments, this book brings deathscapes - material, embodied and emotional places associated with dying and death - to life. It pushes the boundaries of established empirical and conceptual understandings of death in urban spaces through anthropological, geographical and ethnographic insights. Chapters reveal how urban deathscapes are experienced, used, managed and described in specific locales in varied settings; how their norms and values intersect and at times conflict with the norms of dominant and assumed practices; and how they are influenced by the dynamic practices, politics and demographics typical of urban spaces. Case studies from across Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America highlight the differences between deathscapes, but also show their clear commonality in being as much a part of the world of the living as they are of the dead. With a people- and space-centred approach, this book will be an interesting read for human geography, death studies and urban studies scholars, as well as social and cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its international and interdisciplinary nature will also make this a beneficial book for planning and landscape architecture, religious studies and courses on death practices.

In this inspiring masterpiece, bestselling author Susan Cain shows the power of the "bittersweet" -- the outlook that values the experiences of loss and pain, which can lead to growth and beauty. Understanding bittersweetness can change the way we work, the way we create and the way we love.

Each chapter helps us navigate an issue that define our lives, from love to death and from authenticity to creativity. Using examples ranging from music and cinema to parenting and business, as well as her own life and the latest academic research, she shows how understanding bittersweetness will allow us, in a flawed world, to accept the loss of past identities; to fully embrace the loves we have; and to weather life's transitions.

Bittersweet reveals that vulnerability and even melancholy can be strengths, and that embracing our inevitable losses makes us more human and more whole. This is a book for those who have felt a piercing joy at the beauty of the world; who react intensely to art and nature; and in a culture that celebrates toughness, who yearn for a wiser and more meaningful world. For bittersweetness is the hidden source of our love stories, moonshots and masterpieces.

New York Times Bestseller A poignant love letter to Bloom's husband and a passionate outpouring of grief, In Love reaffirms the power and value of human relationships. In January 2020, Amy Bloom travelled with her husband Brian to Switzerland, where he was helped by Dignitas to end his life while Amy sat with him and held his hand. Brian was terminally ill and for the last year of his life Amy had struggled to find a way to support his wish to take control of his death, to not submerge 'into the darkness of an expiring existence'. Written with piercing insight and wit, In Love is Bloom's intimate, authentic and startling account of losing Brian, first slowly to the disease of Alzheimer's, and then on becoming a widow. It charts the anxiety and pain of the process that led them to Dignitas, while never avoiding the complex ethical problems that are raised by assisted death. 'Poignant, kind, funny and ultimately redemptive' - Alain de Botton, author of The Course of Love 'In Love is a thrillingly beautiful, laser-eyed book about love, life, mortality and, most remarkably, about the ways in which no one of the three can be separated from the others' - Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and A Home at the End of the World

Laid out in 1848 as a rural garden cemetery by Henry A. S. Dearborn, Forest Hills Cemetery celebrates its 160th anniversary in 2008 as Boston's premier arboretum cemetery. Since the mid-19th century, its 250 magnificent acres have been the resting place of people of all walks of life, ethnicities, religions, and races. Among these are poets Anne Sexton and E. E. Cummings, playwright Eugene O'Neill, and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Forest Hills's landscape is a museum of sculpture, art, and monuments that chronicles the Victorian age to the present. The first crematorium in New England was here, and prominent Bostonian suffragette Lucy Stone was the first person to be cremated at Forest Hills in 1893. An active cemetery and an all-embracing place, Forest Hills offers a bucolic and picturesque setting for the "gathering of generations" and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

'Fascinating... life affirming' Times Literary Supplement 'Without exaggeration, an awe-inspiring achievement' Nigella Lawson Chosen as an Irish Times Book of the Year In this profoundly moving and remarkable book, journalist Hayley Campbell explores society's attitudes towards death, and the impact on those who work with it every day. 'If the reason we're outsourcing this burden is because it's too much for us,' she asks, 'how do they deal with it?' Would facing death directly make us fear it less? Inspired by her own childhood fascination with the subject, she meets embalmers and a former death row executioner, mass fatality investigators and a bereavement midwife. She talks to gravediggers who have already dug their own graves and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear. Through Campbell's incisive and candid interviews with people who see death every day, she asks: Does seeing death change you as a person? And are we all missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? 'Moving, funny, and liable to unexpectedly cause me to tear up' Neil Gaiman 'Essential, compassionate, honest' Audrey Niffenegger

Joanne Hichens lost first her mother, then, in quick succession, her husband, her father and her mother-in-law - two deaths anticipated, two coming as the worst kind of shock. In this memoir of grief and recovery, she writes with honesty and humour of death, our 'constant companion', and the stumbling journey through the country of grief.

By turns searing and sparkling, her account gives compelling insight into the losses that stalk us all, while also celebrating the mainstays of life - friendship, family, and the memories of those we love and lose.

On a blustery night, detectives from the Massachusetts State Police knocked on Amy Gleason's door. Gleason, along with fellow nurse Kim Hoy, had helped a patient deal with pain and suffering at the end of her life. Now the patient was dead, and the two nurses were being investigated for murder. Both believed they had done the right thing, but they had no idea what it would cost them. In this captivating and powerful true story, Dr. Lewis M. Cohen uses the experiences of Gleason, Hoy, and the nursing assistant who accused them of murder to explore what happens when decisions about end-of-life care shift from the hospital to the courtroom and the church. Tracing this issue from the uproar over Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to the controversial figure of Jack Kevorkian, and to the legitimate threat of serial killer medical professionals, Cohen goes behind the scenes on both sides of this debate. He examines how advances in modern medicine have given us tremendous tools for prolonging life but have also forced us to address how we treat patients who are dying and suffering.

This book addresses the dying process and the nature of death itself with the intention that it might help us to accept and embrace both these things as a part of life. Intended to provide a shift in perception, this book aims to alleviate some of the fear, resistance and denial surrounding death. Much has been written about death by spiritual teachers, psychologists, philosophers and palliative specialists, but this book is an entry into the conversation from a viewpoint that is not medical, religious, nor postulating any form of belief system. It is partly a survey of our attitude and resistance to dying and death, and partly an examination of the options available that could serve as a non-denominational enquiry into this unavoidable eventuality. The principle belief is that the tools required for this shift in perception are to be found within us - we already possess what we need that would allow us to drop the heavy weight of fear and anxiety. This book will help the reader to find these tools, guiding the reader towards their own, most direct route, and focuses on the validity of individual experience.

The Silly Thing is an account of a woman's acceptance of and struggle with living and dying with a grade 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer of the brain. It is told from the perspective of her daughter, Esther Ramsay-Jones, a psychotherapist and academic. The book discusses the fears that people might have about dying and specifically about brain cancer: for the author's mother, the tumour affected her speech and, as an English teacher, whose life had so intimately been tied up with language the fear of language loss was at times unbearable. From a psychotherapeutic point of view, the book will explore what it means to be given a terminal diagnosis and what kinds of psychological responses the 'patient' and family members might have. It will touch on notions of family systems theory, and the roles people might then take up as reaction to the news. The author also looks at 'difficult conversations' in palliative care - what might help/what might hinder - and the value of listening skills, capacity for attunement and containment, in staff teams and in the medical profession at large. Though the main focus in this book is her mother's experience, vignettes from the lived experience of practising palliative psychotherapy will be woven into the narrative to highlight the value of talking and sharing fears, anger, confusion, loves and gratitude with those who are dying.

Home is where the heart is. But home is also the most common site for murder. The grimly fascinating new book from the UK's leading criminologist David Wilson uncovers the dangers that exist where we least expect them - perfect for fans of The Dark Side of the Mind and The Mind of a Murderer. The home is the place where murder most commonly occurs. In England and Wales, each year on average 75 per cent of female murder victims and 39 per cent of murdered men are killed at home. This gripping new title from the author of My Life with Murderers and A Plot to Kill explores the tragic prevalence of domestic murder and how, for so many victims, their own home is the place they are most in danger. David Wilson is the UK's leading criminologist and his knowledge of murder is unparalleled. By walking through each part of the house, he explains how each room's purpose has changed over time, the weapons they contain, and ultimately, how these things combine in murder. Delving into infamous as well as lesser-known true crime cases, this examination of the tragic, ordinary nature of murder is both a chilling read and a startling insight into the everyday impact of violence and how it can touch us all.

The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss--a personal or national one--we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stages are invoked to explain everything from how we will recover from the death of a loved one to a sudden environmental catastrophe or to the trading away of a basketball star. But the stunning fact is that there is no validity to the stages that were proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross more than forty years ago.
In "The Truth About Grief, "Ruth Davis Konigsberg shows how the five stages were based on no science but nonetheless became national myth. She explains that current research paints a completely different picture of how we actually grieve. It turns out people are pretty well programmed to get over loss. Grieving should not be a strictly regimented process, she argues; nor is the best remedy for pain always to examine it or express it at great length. The strength of Konigsberg's message is its liberating force: there is no manual to grieving; you can do it freestyle.
In the course of clarifying our picture of grief, Konigsberg tells its history, revealing how social and cultural forces have shaped our approach to loss from the Gettysburg Address through 9/11. She examines how the American version of grief has spread to the rest of the world and contrasts it with the interpretations of other cultures--like the Chinese, who focus more on their bond with the deceased than on the emotional impact of bereavement. Konigsberg also offers a close look at Kubler-Ross herself: who she borrowed from to come up with her theory, and how she went from being a pioneering psychiatrist to a New Age healer who sought the guidance of two spirits named Salem and Pedro and declared that death did not exist.
Deeply researched and provocative, "The Truth About Grief "draws on history, culture, and science to upend our country's most entrenched beliefs about its most common experience.

A New York Times Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year A New Statesman Book to Read From economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, a groundbreaking account of how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class Deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism are rising dramatically in the United States, claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives. Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. This critically important book paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline, and provides solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone.

The heart-wrenchingly honest and fascinating new book from forensic pathologist and bestselling author of UNNATURAL CAUSES, Dr Richard Shepherd A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Each chapter is like a finely-crafted detective story . . . Shepherd writes beautifully, and despite its subject, the book is very funny in parts' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Enlightening, strangely uplifting . . . Shepherd's final chapter on death itself is a meditation of great beauty and light which puts all the darkness of the previous pages into perspective' DAILY MAIL 'Deeply insightful. Unflinching' THE TIMES 'Fascinating' DAILY EXPRESS 'This book is about death, but in it I will take readers on a journey through life . . .' _________ Dr Richard Shepherd, Britain's top forensic pathologist, has spent a lifetime close to the dead. As a medical detective, each autopsy he carries out is its own unique investigation, uncovering the secrets not only of how a person died, but also of how they lived. Through twenty-four of his most intriguing, enlightening and never-before-told cases, Dr Shepherd shares autopsies that span the seven ages of human existence, and have taught him as much about the marvels of life as the inevitability of death. From old to young, from murder to misadventure, and from illness to accidental death, each of these bodies has something to reveal: about human development, about mortality, about its owner's life story, about justice and even about Shepherd himself. From the bestselling author of Unnatural Causes comes a powerful, moving and above all reassuring book about death as it touches our own lives - how to understand it, and, when our time comes (as it must), how to embrace it as the last great adventure. _________ 'He has the ability to examine himself and other people with the same forensic eye that he applies to corpses - one of the reasons why his books feel so life-enhancing' Daily Telegraph Praise for Dr Richard Shepherd 'Gripping, grimly fascinating, and I suspect I'll read it at least twice' Evening Standard 'A deeply mesmerising memoir of forensic pathology. Human and fascinating' Nigella Lawson 'An absolutely brilliant book. I really recommend it, I don't often say that but it's fascinating' Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2 'Puts the reader at his elbow as he wields the scalpel' Guardian 'Fascinating, gruesome yet engrossing' Richard and Judy, Daily Express 'Fascinating, insightful, candid, compassionate' Observer

Pyramus: 'Now die, die, die, die, die.' [Dies] A Midsummer Night's Dream 'Shakespeare's Dead' reveals the unique ways in which Shakespeare brings dying, death, and the dead to life. It establishes the cultural, religious and social contexts for thinking about early modern death, with particular reference to the plague which ravaged Britain during his lifetime, and against the divisive background of the Reformation. But it also shows how death on stage is different from death in real life. The dead come to life, ghosts haunt the living, and scenes of mourning are subverted by the fact that the supposed corpse still breathes. Shakespeare scripts his scenes of dying with extraordinary care. Famous final speeches - like Hamlet's 'The rest is silence', Mercutio's 'A plague o' both your houses', or Richard III's 'My kingdom for a horse' - are also giving crucial choices to the actors as to exactly how and when to die. Instead of the blank finality of death, we get a unique entrance into the loneliness or confusion of dying. 'Shakespeare's Dead' tells of death-haunted heroes such as Macbeth and Hamlet, and death-teasing heroines like Juliet, Ophelia, and Cleopatra. It explores the fear of 'something after death', and characters' terrifying visions of being dead. But it also uncovers the constant presence of death in Shakespeare's comedies, and how the grinning jester might be a leering skull in disguise. This book celebrates the paradox: the life in death in Shakespeare.

Museums and Photography combines a strong theoretical approach with international case studies to investigate the display of death in various types of museums-history, anthropology, art, ethnographic, and science museums - and to understand the changing role of photography in museums. Contributors explore the politics and poetics of displaying death, and more specifically, the role of photography in representing and interpreting this difficult topic. Working with nearly 20 researchers from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines, the editors critically engage the recent debate on the changing role of museums, exhibition meaning-making, and the nature of photography. They offer new ways for understanding representational practices in relation to contemporary visual culture. This book will appeal to researchers and museum professionals, inspiring new thinking about death and the role of photography in making sense of it.