The Grim Reader (edited by Maura Spiegel and Richard Tristan)

OVERVIEW

The Grim Reader: Writings on Death, Dying, and Living On was compiled and edited by Maura Spiegel and Richard Tristan. It brings together more than 60 essays, poems, book excerpts, logs, letters, and articles that cover an expanse of topics – from reckoning with our mortality to perspectives on grief, war, mass death, hospice, aging, and euthanasia… from the influence of death on art and architecture to the history of burial practices… from existential anxiety all the way to an evaluation of Shakespeare’s bizarre last will and testament. The submissions come from philosophers, physicians, professors, and photographers, from critics, economists, novelists, and historians, from scholars, archaeologists, politicians, and filmmakers. You’ll find musings from Sigmund Freud, Thomas Nagel, Michel de Montaigne, and George Orwell – writings from Simone de Beauvoir on caregiving, from Jessica Mitford on funerals, and from Emily Dickinson on loss. There’s poetry by Walt Whitman, Philip Larkin, and John Keats. It spans reflections on what it means to be alive, what it’s like to turn 70, and even what it’s like to watch your mother be cremated (the feet bursting “miraculously into streaming ribbons of garnet coloured lovely flame, smokeless and eager, like pentecostal tongues. . .” – George Bernard Shaw). There’s even a sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

This was a special read for me because The Grim Reader clocked in at mortality book #100 for The Mortal Atheist blog (I still remember hitting 50!). How fitting that #100 was a compilation of reflections from so many voices.

IN SUM:

Is this book entirely secular? No. (not all the essayists, authors, poets, etc. are skeptics)

If I had to describe the book in one sentence? A compilation of works on death, dying, and mortality.

Who should read this book? Those who want a smorgasbord of perspectives on death from some of our most famous thinkers.