The most recommended books about death

This was one of the first books that got me thinking critically about ‘dark tourism’. Harrison inspired me to look at how the dead maintain their relations with the living. In turn, the book galvanized my thinking of the many touristic places where the dead cohabit the world of the living. These range from graves, monuments, and memorials, and made me think about how we give the dead a memorialized afterlife. Drawing upon philosophy, history, and poetry, Harrison teaches us that as we follow in the footsteps of the dead, we are not self-authored. Instead, the thought of death shapes the communion of the living. Within the ‘Dominion of the Dead’, the dead become our guardians where we give them a future so that they may give us a past. 

Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics balanced the comedy of its premise (a woman who can see the dead and helps them) with emotional storylines revolving around guilt, loss, and the remembrance of things past.

The main character, Florence, takes the reader on a journey of rediscovering her passion for life and her power, which correlated closely with the journey I wrote for January in my book. As a central theme in the book, the power of grief to control and paralyze us is a truth the book tackles with such grace and heart.

I found myself break out into tears while reading and highly recommend for people interested in my books or a fantastic book generally. 

I love mysteries with a sensitive protagonist who sees what no one else sees and cares enough to get at the truth when everyone else has dismissed it. Penelope Marin is dealing with grief by collecting trinkets. When she recognizes a trinket in a market stall that had belonged to a murdered young woman, she becomes obsessed with finding out the truth of what happened to her, even though it means putting herself into dangerous situations. Penelope (“Lo”) is brave and determined and doesn’t let anyone else’s disbelief stop her from caring about a murdered woman whom no one else cares about and has written off as unsolved. This is the kind of story that always has me riveted.

This was my first experience with M.S. Spencer. To say she had me right away would be deadly accurate. The setting, the conflict, the characters, the mystery all flowed together so smoothly, I could easily picture myself propped in a corner of the room, watching everything play out.  

And I must confess that the Milo character has left an indelible mark in my memory. She’s one of my favorite players.

Several times I thought for sure I had figured out who was behind the murders. Of course, I was wrong, but that just kept me going. Spencer always delivers an engaging tale.

Eddy Bale becomes a crusader for children after the death of his own young son and decides to take a group of terminally ill children to Disneyland for a holiday. The antic hyperbolic tone of the narration is utterly at odds with the grave subject matter and the novel is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.  

I found this book to be totally unique as it is informed by the many many years Dr. Harrington spent in a hospital ER, taking care of patients.

He goes into a great deal of information on the major diagnoses for seniors and at what point should you consider no longer treating a major illness. So many people do not want to spend their last days in a hospital or medical environment but sadly, many do.

If you want to opt out of pointless care, read this book to make an informed, educated decision!

Dave Egger’s memoir is about his early years as the adult caretaker of his younger brother after the death of both their parents. This is an energetic and writerly work.

His writing screams “Look at me” with its sharp and distinctive style. He writes that he wants to be heard, that he wants to be understood, and his writing demands this of you. 

There are stories of him starting a magazine and him trying to get into MTV’s The Real World. My memory of the book is a scene of him and his brother playing frisbee. It is told in a dramatic and elevated manner, their throws monumentally heroic, the disc cutting the air between them, their catches amazingly acrobatic.

You sense this is how a young hero should see himself in his own story. Surely this is worth seeing, he asks, and I thought: absolutely!

As a nonfiction book this doesn’t involve a specific detective, but it covers an array of dark crimes that happened on Bunker Hill, a dense residential neighborhood of downtown LA that was razed in the 1950s. I’m always amazed when true crime stories read as more far-fetched than the cases worked by fictional detectives: bodies in trunks, drunken rampages, shootings, stabbings, dismemberments. So much mayhem happened in those twenty blocks in the few decades the neighborhood existed. If you ever get the wrongheaded idea that the past was more idyllic and innocent than our messed-up era, thumb through Bunker Noir—you’ll see how shockingly violent our predecessors really were.

This is one of the most unique Romeo & Juliet retellings I’ve ever read. Set in 1920s Shanghai, the heir and heiress of two rival criminal families were childhood friends, once, before they realized the other’s identity. Now they despise each other—and several times, try to kill each other—while also trying very hard to ignore their growing attraction. Spanning two books and with a found family that tugs at all your heartstrings, the daggers are as shiny as the diamonds in this glittering, high-stakes tale. 

This book explores grief tied together with a mysterious death. Holly received ominous, out-of-character messages from her brother before he suddenly took his own life, leaving her to try to figure out the truth of his violent death while working through her own grief.

She finds herself moving in with Dane’s girlfriend, Maura, in her gothic, haunting townhouse, hoping to get clues and to see her own grief reflected in the other woman’s. And while this grief does bring them together, the shallowness and violence of Maura’s mourning makes it clear that she knows more about Dane’s death than she’s sharing.

This is a story of how grief can become the haunted thing that lurks in gothic halls, and the extremes that it can drive people to, completely upending one’s world.