The Big Book of the Dead

By Marion Winik,

Book cover of The Big Book of the Dead

Book description

Marion Wink is esteemed for bringing humor and wit to that most unavoidable of subjects: death.

At last, Winik's critically acclaimed, cult favorites, Glen Rock Book of the Dead and Baltimore Book of the Dead, have been carefully combined in their proper chronological order, revealing more clearly than ever before…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Big Book of the Dead as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The premise is simple but ingenious. Winik catalogs the lives and deaths of people she’s known throughout her life, some well, others hardly at all. Each entry is no longer than a page or two, and her writing is stark and unruffled, creating moments of dark humor. She never glorifies the departed, yet her emotion buzzes below the surface. And you immediately wonder how your own page or two might go.

From Emily's list on for contemplating mortality.

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