What do you think?
Rate this book
Life. Death. Whatever.: Lessons about Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying
Life. Death. Whatever. is a new approach to death and dying, showing how exploring our mortality really can change our lives.
End-of-life doula Anna Lyons and funeral director Louise Winter have joined forces to share a collection of the heartbreaking, surprising and uplifting stories of the ordinary and extraordinary lives they encounter every single day. From working with the living, the dying, the dead and the grieving, Anna and Louise share the lessons they've learned about life, death, love and loss.
If we acknowledge and accept our mortality, can we live a better life? If we embrace the end of life in the same way as we embrace the beginning, can we transform our lives? This is a book about life and living, as much as it's a book about death and dying. It's a reflection on the beauties, blessings and tragedies of life, the exquisite agony and ecstasy of being alive, and the fragility of everything we hold dear. It's as simple and as complicated as that.
End-of-life doula Anna Lyons and funeral director Louise Winter have joined forces to share a collection of the heartbreaking, surprising and uplifting stories of the ordinary and extraordinary lives they encounter every single day. From working with the living, the dying, the dead and the grieving, Anna and Louise share the lessons they've learned about life, death, love and loss.
If we acknowledge and accept our mortality, can we live a better life? If we embrace the end of life in the same way as we embrace the beginning, can we transform our lives? This is a book about life and living, as much as it's a book about death and dying. It's a reflection on the beauties, blessings and tragedies of life, the exquisite agony and ecstasy of being alive, and the fragility of everything we hold dear. It's as simple and as complicated as that.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Hardcover
Published June 30, 2020
2 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 21, 2022
A frank, sober, and heartfelt call for us to face the realities of death and to use that knowledge to drive ourselves to live our best lives.
The book is divided into parts, each more focused on the living. It starts with death and end-of-life living. Covers the role of supporting people in their final days and years. It then moves on to cover the mechanics of funerals and the funeral service, before turning to issues of the living. Topics including Grief, Difficult Conversations, and living a good life.
The book is grounded in emotional reality. Interspersed between sometimes technical accounts, are personal stories and anecdotes. It is rare for me to cry reading non-fiction, but I frequently found myself moved by the personal stories of the authors and their clients.
This emotional grounding is an important reflection of their work to humanise death. Much of the book is concerned with how Western society hides death, and takes away agency from the dying and the bereaved. This book is a call to recognise the need to recognise grief and loss and emotion as being central to healthy coping through the death of loved ones and the end of our lives.
The book also has a lot of practical information. Whole much of that is UK specific, the general principles would seem to be correct wherever you are. The explanation of what funeral directors do and their relation to morgues, and the medical profession was particularly enlightening.
This combination clearly reflects the authors’ approach to their work. It is a call for us to put people and our shared humanity at the center of this important life and the event. I highly recommend this book.
The book is divided into parts, each more focused on the living. It starts with death and end-of-life living. Covers the role of supporting people in their final days and years. It then moves on to cover the mechanics of funerals and the funeral service, before turning to issues of the living. Topics including Grief, Difficult Conversations, and living a good life.
The book is grounded in emotional reality. Interspersed between sometimes technical accounts, are personal stories and anecdotes. It is rare for me to cry reading non-fiction, but I frequently found myself moved by the personal stories of the authors and their clients.
This emotional grounding is an important reflection of their work to humanise death. Much of the book is concerned with how Western society hides death, and takes away agency from the dying and the bereaved. This book is a call to recognise the need to recognise grief and loss and emotion as being central to healthy coping through the death of loved ones and the end of our lives.
The book also has a lot of practical information. Whole much of that is UK specific, the general principles would seem to be correct wherever you are. The explanation of what funeral directors do and their relation to morgues, and the medical profession was particularly enlightening.
This combination clearly reflects the authors’ approach to their work. It is a call for us to put people and our shared humanity at the center of this important life and the event. I highly recommend this book.
September 24, 2021
I heard a podcast with an interview of the authors, and I was impressed. I checked the book out at the library, but I soon realized that I should really purchase a copy to have on hand. There are so many topics around death and dying, funerals, grief, and so forth that it just isn't a traditional read. It is a book to skim to topics that you need at the time. If you have a funeral to plan, go to that section. If you are experiencing grief, go to those chapters, etc. I particularly liked the chapter entitled "All that's left unsaid". How many times do we wish we had said something to someone who is no longer with us? This chapter allows us to think about that and maybe say it anyhow.
There are great lists that are easy to read and resources galore. If you are open to looking at death and dying issues, I highly recommend this book.
There are great lists that are easy to read and resources galore. If you are open to looking at death and dying issues, I highly recommend this book.
April 9, 2021
This is a book everyone should read. Death is a part of life and something that is feared and rarely spoken about but this book talks sensitively about death, how to prepare for it, how to deal with it and how to ensure your loved one or you get the best end of life care they can. It's not an easy read and brings back painful memories and found it exhausting at times but it'd opened my mind more. We as a country don't talk about death and I think that if more people read this book it would start so many important conversations especially with young people.
November 16, 2023
This book is a fantastic, brutally honest but refreshingly real exploration of death and dying. As a society we tend to shy away from talking about mortality because so many of us fear it, but this book implores us to break the taboo and start those difficult conversations. There are some quite emotional passages and it's not always an easy read, but I feel like it's an important one.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews