I’m Erica Buist, a writer, journalist, lecturer, and playwright based in London. I became interested in death anxiety when I realised mine was out of control after my partner and I found his father dead. Reading up on death anxiety, it struck me that some cultures seem to deal with it by throwing festivals for the dead, which seemed to be the very opposite of our policy of not talking about it unless absolutely necessary. I thought I’d better go and see how they managed that—so I did. Six years, eight countries and about a million espressos later, my book was published.
By the time Erica Buist's father-in-law Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, his book resting on his chest, he had been dead for over a week. She searched for answers (the artery-clogging cheeses in his fridge?) and tried to reason with herself (does daughter-in-law even feature in the grief hierarchy?) and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies.
With Mexico's Day of the Dead festivities as a starting point, Erica decided to confront death head-on by visiting seven death festivals around the world—one for every day they didn't find Chris. From Mexico to Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan, and finally Indonesia—with a stopover in New Orleans, where the dead outnumber the living ten to one—Erica searched for the answers to questions around death anxiety.
In the face of abject terror that was put in place by evolution and exacerbated by culture, nothing is quite as calming as facts and science. These psychologists spent three decades testing the various ways people reacted when given a reminder of their own mortality, and they were startlingly uniform. For example, when given a death reminder people are more likely to give in to prejudice, to vote for ‘charismatic’ leaders, to have the urge to shop or place a higher value on material goods, and become more defensive of their cultural symbols.
For me, it’s incredibly comforting to realise the behaviour we see every day—or even in ourselves when bereaved—is a predictable psychological response.
Proof of a ground-breaking psychological theory: that the fear of death is the hidden motive behind almost everything we do.
'A joy ... The Worm at the Core asks how humans can learn to live happily while being intelligently aware of our impending doom, how knowledge of death affects the decisions we make every day, and how we can stop fear and anxiety overwhelming us' Charlotte Runcie, Daily Telegraph
'Provocative, lucid and fascinating' Financial Times
'An important, superbly readable and potentially life-changing book . . . suggests one should confront mortality in order to live an authentic life' Tim Lott,…
A lot of people I spoke to in Britain and the US regarded thanatophobia—the fear of dying—as the right, proper, and ordinary human state. So it’s very comforting to read about our death culture through the eyes of someone who wasn’t raised that way. In TTBOLAD, the ‘western’ view of death is held up and examined as very much one of many ways to respond to it—and while it’s certainly not healthy to ignore it until you’re dealing with grief or you’re dying yourself (ie. when you’re at your highest moment of trauma), with this book it becomes very clear, very quickly that it’s not the only option.
Explains the Tibetan understanding of what happens when a person dies, and how this can help in a person's daily life, in caring for the terminally ill and the bereaved, and to deepen one's understanding of life.
This may seem like an odd recommendation, but Jules’s exploration of the way death keeps the earth going is not only fascinating, but it also widens the perspective away from humans to the animal kingdom—a handy reminder that we’re as much a part of said kingdom as any others species. It’s always a useful reminder that, despite what our individualist culture and stories and tell us, death is not always an aberration, something a sneaky lawyer hid in the small print; it’s normal, necessary, and actually very helpful.
There is nothing more life-affirming than understanding death in all its forms.
Natural selection depends on death; little would evolve without it. Every animal on Earth is shaped by its presence and fashioned by its spectre. We are all survivors of starvation, drought, volcanic eruptions, meteorites, plagues, parasites, predators, freak weather events, tussles and scraps, and our bodies are shaped by these ancient events.
Some animals live for just a few hours as adults, others prefer to kill themselves rather than live unnecessarily for longer than they are needed, and there are a number of animals that can live for…
A classic recommendation throughout the death world, but Caitlin’s memoir about working in a crematorium is shot through with activism, challenging society’s fear of death and the corpse, and makes a brilliant argument for it being the root of a lot of avoidable problems.
Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life's work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our…
The only fiction book on my list, I picked up Owen’s book of short stories while I was at a writer’s residency in Vermont, writing my own book. It’s a delightful collection, wickedly funny, with the exact mix of dread, terror, humour, and lightheartedness I was looking for.
In this devilishly clever collection of short fiction, renowned humorist Owen Egerton leads us on a wildly surprising, darkly comic, and often heart-wrenching ride into the terrible beauty of life's end. With razor wit and compassionate insight, Egerton has a crafted a work that brilliantly explores the pain and wonder of life, knowing that with the turn of any corner death could be panhandling for your soul.
Maximilian Tundra is about to have an existential crisis of cosmic proportions.
When a physical duplicate of him appears in his living room, wearing a tight-fitting silver lamé unitard and speaking with an English accent, Max knows something bad is about to happen. Bad doesn’t cover it. Max discovers he’s the only human being who can prevent the end of the world, and not just on his planet! In the multiverse, infinite Earths will be destroyed.
★★★★★ "Funny, yet deep, this is definitely worth venturing into the multiverse for."
Amazing Stories says: "Snarky as Pratchet, insightful as Stephenson, as full of scathing social commentary as Swift or Voltaire, and weirdly reminiscent of LeGuin, Alpha Max is the only multiverse novel you need this month, or maybe ever."
Maximilian Tundra is about to have an existential crisis of cosmic proportions.
When a physical duplicate of him appears in his living room, wearing a tight-fitting silver lamé unitard and speaking with an English accent, Max knows something bad is about to happen. Bad doesn’t cover it. Max discovers…
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