I want to share with you some books I have found helpful in learning more about death care, death, and dying. This by no means is an exhaustive list, but with innumerable books out there, this list can get you started.
- Jessica Mitford’s American Way of Death (1963, 2000) is a classic expose about the funeral industry. I secretly call it The Jungle of funerals; Mitford’s work reminds me of Sinclair’s turn-of-the-century muckraking about the meatpacking industry and politics in Chicago. Mitford’s aim was to educate the public and make the funeral industry more transparent. It’s a historical view and some things have changed (much has not).
- A Beginner’s Guide to the End by BJ Miller, MD, and Shoshana Berger is an excellent reference for all things end-of-life and deathcare. BJ’s story of how he became a palliative care physician is powerful. This book is your friend when it comes to understanding what can happen at the end of life, what your options are to plan for those possibilities, and how to think about those options when you’re confused by what medicine and the deathcare industry tell you.
- Speaking of palliative care, an often misunderstood medical field, That Good Night by Sunita Puri is a wonderful narrative medical memoir about one doctor’s journey from medical school to palliative care practice. Puri tells her story, both personal and professional, in a very accessible way. She discusses some of her greatest challenges in palliative care and how she used grit and teamwork to solve them.
- Not all hospice care is the same, and The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaskeski is a beautiful and moving book about death…and life. Frank’s story weaves together his experience running The Zen Hospice Project, his time working in the Bay Area during the AIDS crisis, and how being present with people during death can teach us how to live.
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s Death: The Final Stage of Growth provides a similar vantage point as Ostaskeski’s. Kubler-Ross’s Stages of Grief (often transposed as the stages of coping with dying) is a world-renown framework but this book provides a more nuanced discussion of death and dying itself- from the voices of those experiencing the end of life.
- American Afterlives by anthropologist and archaeologist Shannon Dawdy is a creative work describing the history of body disposition practice and the new and innovative ways Americans can craft a unique plan for their remains. Dawdy discusses the cremation movement, offers stories and insights into what people want to do with their bodies, and goes into detail about how and where you can execute your own death care plan (green/natural burial, tree pods, and more).
- Caitlyn Doughty’s trio of books, From Here to Eternity, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs are accessible and humorous memoirs providing readers with an inside look into the life of a mortician. Doughty, YouTube personality (Ask a Mortician), debunks myths and offers a historical context for funerals, burials, embalming, and cremation. She takes you on a journey to understand death culture outside of the U.S., shedding light on why American deathcare culture is stuck. Doughty is the co-founder of the organization The Order of the Good Death which aims to provide education and support to all those seeking understanding and resources for end-of-life and deathcare.
- If you’re interested in the psychology of death and dying, the go-to classic is The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. This Pulitzer Prize-winning work takes us deep into the psyche of our refusal to accept our mortality and why this illusion keeps us from living fully.
- How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland takes us on a journey of death, if you’re willing and resolved to do so. Nuland, a surgical doctor at Yale, gives us the most intimate look at how death happens through stories and case studies. This is a powerful book and one you’ll want to digest slowly and take good care of yourself when you do.
There are many more books to consider, but this is a good starter pack. Several of these are groundbreaking works in death and dying, however, conceptually they may not resonate with our current culture. Thinking about our mortality is a challenging exercise, and it’s the first hurdle to approaching your death care with an open mind and heart.
