Who’s Afraid of Dying?

I last addressed this issue some 5 years ago with an annotated post of 21 books which started with Jessica Mitford’s book of 1963 which she updated some 30 years later The American Way of Death Revisited. The second book was On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross(1969) which detailed the famous five stages of grief -

• denial

• anger

• bargaining

• depression

• acceptance

Since then, I’ve found 10 more which deal with old age and the prospect of dying

Stay of Execution – a sort of memoir Stewart Alsop (1973) just 75 pages
The Human Encounter with Death Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax (1978) 258pp
The Hour of our Death Philippe Aries (1981) 900pp
Wrestling with the Angel – a memoir of my triumph over illness Max Lerner (1990) 200pp
Intoxicated by my Illness and other writings on life and death Anatole Broyard (1992) An amazing 

little book (only 82 pages) from a book reviewer who was diagnosed with late-stage prostate 

cancer

The 100 year life – living and working in an age of longevity L Gratton and A Scott (2016) 327pp

Old Age – a beginner’s guide Michael Kinsley (2016) 83pp

The New Long Life – a framework for flourishing in a changing world A Scott and L Gratton (2020)

186pp
The Lost Art of Dying  LS Dugdale (2021) 185pp

Age Proof – the new science of living a longer and healthier life Rose Kenny (2022) 299pp

The one thing I take from this post is the need to give a higher profile to my blog and the riches it offers – whether it’s

• Diaries, Letters and Memoirs July 2025 which is an annotated list of more than 300 books (with hyperlinks to the original books)

• books about Death and Dying June 2025 – only some 30 books

• Postmodernity Anyone? Jan 2024 – another short (30 page) essay trying to make sense of this label

• Patterns of decline (Nov 2022) impossible to count the number of hyperlinked books mentioned in this essay

• Puzzling Cultural Values (Sept 2022) annotates some 50 books about cultural differences