In all my travel books, I’ve followed my intuition to a destination or into a subject, pairing emotion with intellectual curiosity, travelling to try to know a people, place, idea, or time. So the pivot to navigating the ‘border' between life and death felt like an obvious extension. It’s a frontier that we'll all have to pass, and we’ll not have to worry about forgetting your passport. I began my search for my wife Katrin as a skeptic and ended it with faith in the existence of an afterlife. In sharing this journey, I hope others may be helped to prepare for and to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
How do we make sense of death? How do we balance rational explanations with the ‘magical thinking’ of the heart?
In her honest and passionate memoir, Joan Didion—an iconic American journalist and author—attempted 'to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness…about marriage and children and memory…about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself’.
Her search for meaning leaned toward rational explanations, yet this remains a vital work in enabling us to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life - in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.
Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then pneumonia, then complete sceptic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later - the night before New Year's Eve -the Dunnes were…
How to get to heaven? Apart from in the customary end-of-it-all way?
There are no overnight buses to the Hereafter. Among the best ways is through this classic work on spirituality and mysticism. The late Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, explores themes of friendship, belonging, solitude, creativity and the imagination.
He encourages readers ‘to come home’ to the natural rhythms in ourselves, and to the sacred connections with one another and our landscapes. It’s a book that nourishes the heart and elevates the spirit. As O’Donohue writes, ‘We do not need to go out to find love, rather we need to be still and let love discover us.’
When St Patrick came to Ireland in the 5th century AD, he encountered the Celtic people and a flourishing spiritual tradition that had already existed for thousands of years. He also discovered that where the Christians worshipped one God, the Celts had many and found divinity all around them: in the rivers, hills, sea and sky. The ancient Celtic reverence for the spirit in all things survives today - a vibrant legacy of mystical wisdom that is unique in the Western world.
Now, in this exquisite book, Irish poet and scholar John O'Donohue shares with us the secrets of this…
Jo Jackson believes she has put behind her difficult childhood with a charismatic but sometimes violent father. One day, however, out of the blue, she is moved to write about him. Immediately she comes unstuck, face to face with things that don't add up, and a growing sense of mystery…
In the West, many of us shy away from discussing death. It’s an unknowable, frightening inevitability, the last taboo in our society, according to grief psychotherapist Julia Samuel.
At once rigorous and practical, Grief Works is a compassionate guide for those of us left behind, including family, friends and carers, helping us all to get through the hardest months and years, showing how to live and learn from great loss.
'Fascinating. A wise and compassionate book full of insight and understanding that would help anyone experiencing grief, or those surrounding them' Cathy Rentzenbrink
'A wonderfully important and transforming book - lucid, consoling and wise' William Boyd
Grief Works is a compassionate guide that will inform and engage anyone who is grieving, from the 'expected' death of a parent to the sudden unexpected death of a small child, and provide clear advice for those seeking to comfort the bereaved.
Julia Samuel guides you gently through her eight practical pillars of strength - that include the…
What if everything we thought we knew about death was wrong?
How should we prepare for the dying and saying goodbye? And how can understanding death improve our life? These are the questions posed—and answered—by Kathryn Mannix, palliative care pioneer and CBT therapist. ‘There are only two days with fewer than twenty-four hours in each lifetime, sitting like bookends astride our lives: one is celebrated every year, yet it is the other that makes us see living as precious.’
Death animates life and, in common with all the books selected, With the End in Mind really can change the way you see the world.
'Impossible to read with dry eyes or an unaltered mindset' Sunday Times
'Illuminating and beautiful' Cathy Rentzenbrink
What if everything you thought you knew about death was wrong?
How should we prepare for the facts of dying and saying our goodbyes?
And what if understanding death improved your life?
By turns touching and tragic, funny and wise, With the End in Mind brings together Kathryn Mannix ' s lifetime of medical experience to tell powerful stories of life and death.
The Day Rachel Carson Invented Environmentalism
by
Bryant Wieneke,
Rachel Carson was an eminent scientist and the foremost nature writer in the United States when she stumbled - or rather crashed - into the realization of what the indiscriminate use of insecticides and pesticides was doing to water systems, plants, and animals, and ultimately the health of the American…
Although the therapeutic value of psychedelics is not yet proven, and real risks remain, a new generation of scientists and therapists is today repurposing hallucinogenic drugs.
How to Change Your Mind is a history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of what could be the future of consciousness. This mind-altering book helped me—a psychedelic novice—to find the courage to embark on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind, and to become re-enchanted with the world.
"Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured." -New York Times
A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book
A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such…
Five years ago, travel writer Rory MacLean set out on a path that would change his life forever. When his wife died, he couldn't imagine living without her. So he decided to find where she had gone, tracing around the globe mankind's ideas of the afterlife, seeking out places where our mortal world touched the divine.
He travelled from Jacob’s Rock in the Holy Land to the Himalayas, from America’s Great Plains to Amazonia and beyond. In Delhi, he was told ‘the universe will keep sending you loving souls to guide you on this journey,’ and it did, opening doors, revealing wonders beyond his imagination, until—in five truly extraordinary moments—his wife was beside him. The result is a life-enhancing travel book like no other.
Solo Pour invites readers to slow down and rediscover the extraordinary hidden within ordinary life. Through short, heartfelt essays, Michael Crawford reflects on gratitude, caregiving, belonging, faith, resilience, family, and the quiet moments that shape who we become.
Each reflection can be read in just a few minutes, making the…
Winner of the Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies.
Celebrating Mailer's centenary and the seventy-fifth publication of The Naked and the Dead, the book illustrates how Mailer remains a provocative presence in American letters.
From the debates of the nation's founders, to the revolutionary traditions of western romanticism,…
