2023 Reading Challenge
We invite you to join our 2023 book reading challenge focused on death, grief, and healing.
Whether you're a seasoned death positive reader looking to boost your knowledge or a newly minted deathling looking to discover a new perspective, this challenge is for anyone who has experienced loss and is looking for comfort, understanding, and support through the written word. Choose your own reading goals and track your progress throughout the year.
Share your thoughts and feelings about the books you read with our community and get personalized recommendations from fellow readers through the #PDDCReadingChallenge hashtag on Instagram. Let's come together and find knowledge, understanding, and comfort through the power of literature.
Please note that the following are simply the first 15 suggested books for some categories. The full list is located here. We also welcome you to comment on the Google Document any books/works that we might have missed.
Caring for the caregiver and/or self-care
A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents and Ourselves – Jane Gross
Be the Noodle: Fifty ways to be a compassionate, courageous, crazy-good caregiver – Lois Kelly
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love – Sonya Renee Taylor
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? – Roz Chast
The Caregiver’s Challenge: Living, Loving, Letting Go – Maryann Schacht
The Color of Care: A Beginner’s Guide for the African American Caregiver – Ky’a Jackson
The Conscious Caregiver: A Mindful Approach to Caring for Your Loved One Without Losing Yourself – Linda Abbit
Living with Dying — Jahnna Beecham and Katie Ortlip
Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss – Margaret Renkl
Multicultural Guide to Caregiving: Essential resources to help you balance traditions without losing your mind or money – Angelica Herrera Venson
My Two Elaines: Learning, Coping, and Surviving as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver – Martin J. Schreiber
The Self-Compassion Workbook – Joy Johnson
Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, and Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy Second Edition – Sheila K. Collins, PHD, Christine Gautreaux, MSW
The Sudden Caregiver: A Roadmap for Resilient Caregiving – Karen Warner Schueler
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? – Julie Smith
Fiction - where a death worker is a character
The Next Thing You Know – Jessica Strawser
The Book of Two Ways – Jodi Picoult
Casket Cache – Janice J. Richardson
The Thoughts & Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals – Wendy Jones
Wild Oats – Pamela Morsi
Woman of the Dead – Bernhard Aichner
Madam Mortician – Tara Carr
Owl’s Slumber – Nicky James
Cremains of the Day – Misty Simon
Mourning Wood – Heather M. Orgeron
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – Allison Bechdel
Putting Makeup on Dead People – Jen Violi
Beneath the Bone Tree – Anne-Marie Keppel
Life Events – Karolina Waclawiak
Dear Edward – Ann Napolitano
Centered around cultural deathways
Las Ceremonias Bonitas, Home Funeral Ceremonies: A primer to honor the dying and the dead with reverence, light-heartedness and grace – Donna Belk & Kateyanne Unullisi
The Buried Treasures Of The Ga: Coffin Art In Ghana – Regula Tschumi
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Sogyal Rinpoche
Anam Cara – John O’Donohue
The American Book of Living and Dying – Richard Groves
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death – Caitlin Doughty
Passed On: African American Mourning Stories – Karla FC Holloway
Killing the Black Body – Dorothy Roberts
Path of Souls: The Native American Death Journey – Gregory Little
No Death, No Fear – Thich Nhat Hanh
Revolutions in Sorrow: The American Experience of Death in Global Perspective – Peter N. Stearns
Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors – Sue Chung and Priscilla Wegars
Death and the Idea of Mexico – Claudio Lomnitz
The Way of American Death Revisited – Jessica Mitford
Traditions of Death and Burial – Helen Frisby
Written by a deathcare provider
Death Nesting – Anne-Marie Keppel
Die Wise – Stephen Jenkinson
Accompanying The Dying – Deanna Cochran
The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life – Katy Butler
Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go – Amy Wright Glenn
Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life – Megory Anderson
Reimagining Death – Lucinda Herring
Peaceful Passages – Janet Wehr RN
A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical advice for living life and facing death – Shoshana Berger & B.J. Miller
The Five Invitations: Discovering what death can teach us about living fully – Frank Ostaseski
The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life – Ira Byock
That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour – Sunita Puri
Caring for the Dying: The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death – Henry Ferko-Weiss
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death – Joan Halifax
The Green Reaper: Memoirs of an Eco-Mortician – Elizabeth Fournier
A work of thanatology or the psychology of grief
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe – Laura Lynne Jackson
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone – Lori Gottlieb
The Wild Edge of Sorrow – Francis Weller
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession – Alice Bolin
Grief is a Journey: Finding Your Path Through Loss – Kenneth Doka
Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief – Pauline Boss
Grief, Dying, & Death – Therese Rando
Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving – Julia Samuel
Western Attitudes Toward Death: from the Middle Ages to the Present – Phillipe Aries
Death, Dying and Grief in an Online Universe – Carla Sofka
The Denial of Death – Ernest Becker
The Worm at the Core – Sheldon Solomon
Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief – David Kessler
Philosophy and Death: Introductory Readings – Robert J. Stainton
Handbook of Thanatology: The Essential Body of Knowledge for the Study of Death, Dying, and Bereavement – David Meagher & David Balk
About the physical process of dying
Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience by Barbara Karnes
Hospice & Palliative Care Handbook: Third Edition – Tina M. Marrelli
The Corpse: A History – Christine Quigley
Compassionate Person-Centered Care for the Dying – Bonnie Freeman
Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient – Norman Cousins
Extreme Measures: Finding a better path to the end of life – Jessica Zitter MD
Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them) – Sallie Tisdale
Final Gifts: Understanding the special awareness, needs, and communications of the dying – Maggie Callanan
Knocking On Heaven’s Door – Katy Butler
The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care – Angelo E. Volandes
How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter – Sherwin B. Nuland
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life – Haider Warraich
Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales – William M. Bass
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer – Siddhartha Mukherjee
Written by a dying person
The Unwinding of the Miracle – Julie Yip Williams
When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
Proof of Heaven: A neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife – Eben Alexander
Drop by Drop – Judy Croome
Dying: A Memoir – Cory Taylor
The Undying – Anne Boyer
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved – Kate Bowler
Salt In My Soul: An Unfinished Life – Mallory Smith
The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying – Nina Riggs
Napkin Notes – Garth Callaghan
Until I Say Goodbye: My Year of Living With Joy – Susan Spencer-Wendel
The Cancer Journals – Audre Lorde
The End of Your Life Book Club – Will Schwalbe
The Crossover Experience: Life After Death / A New Perspective – DJ Kadagian
Fiction - where death is a character
Mort – Terry Pratchett
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Gods of Jade and Shadow – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Death with Interruptions – Jose Saramago
Grave Mercy – Robin LaFevers
A Dirty Job – Christopher Moore
On a Pale Horse – Piers Anthony
Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente
The Company of Death – Elisa Hansen
The Tiger's Wife – Téa Obreht
The End Specialist – Drew Magary
A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares – Krystal Sutherland
My Soul to Take – Rachel Vincent
Inbetween – Tara A. Fuller
Croak – Gina Damico
A queered death-related perspective
LGTBQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care – Kimberly Acquaviva
it was never going to be ok – jaye simpson
You Better Be Lightning – Andrea Gibson
Grief Map – Sarah Hahn Campbell
The Light Streamed Beneath It: A Memoir of Grief and Celebration – Shawn Hitchins
No Proper Grief: A journey of loss & resilience – Jakob Franzen
A Quilt for David – Steven Reigns
Queer Necropolitics – Edited By Jin Haritaworn, Adi Kuntsman, Silvia Posocco
Angels in America — Tony Kushner (stage play)
Under the Whispering Door – TJ Klune
Queering Acts of Mourning in the Aftermath of Argentina's Dictatorship: The Performances of Blood – Cecilia Sosa
Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief – Cindy Milstein, ed.
The Dark Eclipse – A.W. Barnes
Contemplative Caregiving: Finding Healing, Compassion, and Spiritual Growth Through End-of-Life Care – John Eric Baugher
Partnered Grief: When Gay and Lesbian Partners Grieve Paperback – Harold Ivan Smith & Joy Johnson
Written by a griever
A Very Easy Death – Simone de Beauvoir
Men We Reaped: A Memoir – Jesmyn Ward
The Way Through the Woods – Long Litt Woon
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
Crying in H Mary – Michelle Zauner
From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home – Tembi Locke
Shattered by Grief: Picking Up the Pieces to Become Whole Again – Claudia Coenen
Let’s Take the Long Way Home – Gail Caldwell
The Long Goodbye – Meghan O’Rourke
The Mercy Papers – Robin Romm
The Iceberg – Marion Coutts
I'm Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy
Sweet Sorrow – Mark Wakely
Grief Healed: A Physician's Guide to Dealing with Grief and Thriving – Sona Bhatnagar
Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back – Melissa Stephenson
Death care / grief care academic journal
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
Death Studies Journal
The Collective for Radical Death Studies Canon (see website)
lambda nordica
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management
Markers – the scholarly journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies
Thanatological Studies
Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies; Queer thanatologies issue summer 2021.
Illness Crisis & Loss: SAGE Journals
Journal of Loss and Trauma
Journal of Personal and Interpersonal Loss
Mortality
Journal of Historical Sociology (selected issues)
Progress in Palliative Care
Readings in Aging and Death: A Contemporary Perspective
A book about ethical wills
For You When I Am Gone: A Journal: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Your Ethical Will – Steve Leder
Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper – Barry K. Baines
Ethical Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury – Jack Reimer & Nathaniel Stampfer
Written by and about PGM grieving and dying
Passed On: African American Mourning Stories – Karla FC Holloway
Killing the Black Body – Dorothy Roberts
Grieving While Black: An antiracist take on oppression and sorrow – Breeshia Wade
Dear Memory: Letters on writing, silence, and grief – Victoria Chang
The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On – Franny Choi
Postcolonial Grief: The afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas – Jinah Kim
One Long Listening: A memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care – Chenxing Han
Time Is a Mother – Ocean Vuong
Black Grief / White Grievance: The Politics of Loss – Juliet Hooker
Grief Is Love: Living with loss – Marisa Renee Lee
Black Widow – Leslie Gray Streeter
Way of Wakan: Reflections on Lakota spirituality and grief – David J. Mathieu
Spirit Matters: White Clay, Red Exits, Distant Others – Gordon Henry
Race & the Funeral Profession: What Jessica Mitford Missed – Kami Fletcher
The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color – Natalie Y. Gutiérrez LMFT
