Read, Watch and Listen
Books
By Your Side, Caring for the Dying at Home, Barbara Karnes
Bold Spirit Caring for the Dying, Janet Booth * Gale Gagnier * Terrence Ho *Lesley James * Ashlee Jansen * Shannon Koppenhoefer * Janice Lombardo * Tamelynda Lux * Olga Nikolajev *Siby Varghese * Chrystal Waban
Advice for Future Corpses and Those Who Love Them, Sallie Tisdale
Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care, Koshin Paley Ellison and Matt Weingast
Caring for the Dying, Henry Fersko-Weiss
A Beginner's Guide to the End, BJ Miller MD and Shoshana Berger
The Handbook for Companioning the Mourner, Alan Wolfelt
Grieving Is Loving: Compassionate Words for Bearing the Unbearable, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore
Bearing the Unbearable, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore
What's Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss, Haley and Williams
The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller
A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis
A Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
What to Do When I am Gone: A Mother’s Wisdom to Her Daughter, Suzy Hopkins.
The VSED Handbook, Kate Christie
The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America, by Anita Hannig
In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss, Amy Bloom
Being Mortal, Atul Gawande
The Three Regrets, Tenzin Kiyosaki
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalinithi
Die Wise, Stephen Jenkinson
Holding Space on Loving, Dying, and Letting Go, by Amy Wright Glenn
The Five Invitations, Frank Ostaseski
The Grace in Dying, Kathleen Dowling-Singh
A Year to Live, Stephen and Ondrea Levine
Who Dies? Stephen and Ondrea Levine
Dying Well, Ira Byock
How to Enjoy Death: Preparing to Meet Life’s Final Challenge without Fear, Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Walking Each Other Home, Ram Dass
The Conversation, Volandes, MD
The Lost Art of Dying, L.S. Dugdale
Extreme Measures, Jessica Zitter, MD
At Home With Dying, Collett
Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
Marrow, Elizabeth Lesser
Graceful Exit, Ferber, MD
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Dancing with Elephants, Jarem Sawatsky
From Here to Eternity, Caitlin Doughty
The Good Funeral, Long and Lynch
Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality, by Judith L. Lief
No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh (Riverhead)
Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive, by Larry Rosenberg
Staring at the sun: Overcoming the terror of death, by Irving Yalom
The End of Fear: A spiritual path for realists, by Richard Schaub
Share the Care, by Capossela and Warnock
At the Time of Death: Symbols & Rituals for Caregivers and Chaplains, by David Bieniek
Dear Death, by Diane Button
With the End in Mind, by Kathryn Mannix
Grief is for People, by Sloane Crosley
Power in the Helping Professions by Gugglebruhl-Craig
Companioning the Bereaved by Dr. Wolfet
Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish (fiction)
When Breath Becomes Air - by Paul Kalinithi (Memoire)
Present Through the End - by Kirsten DeLeo (Caring Companion’s Guide
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - by Sogyal Rinpoche (updated edition)
Intimate Death: How the Dying Teaches how to Live - by Marie DeHennevel
Our Greatest Gifts: A Meditation on Dying and Caring - by Henri Nouwen
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Here After by Amy Lin
The Fault of Our Stars by John Green (Fiction)
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
The End of Your Life Book Club - By Will Schwalbe
The Year of Magical Thinking by Jill Didion
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs by Caitlin Doughty
The Five People you Meet in Heaven - by Mitch Albom
Final Gifts by Maggie Callanan
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast
The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying - by Nina Riggs (Memoir)
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
It’s OK that You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand by Megan Devine
Deathing: An Intelligent Alternative for the Final Moments of Life by Anya Foos-Graber
In the Slender Margin: The Intimate Strangeness of Death and Dying by Eve Joseph
Gone from my Sight by Barbara Karnes
On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
Living in the Face of Death: The Tibetan Tradition by Glenn Mullin
The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America by Ann Neuman
How We Die: Reflections On LIfe’s Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
Advice for Future Corpses and Those Who Love Them: A Practical Perspective on
Death and Dying by Sallie Tisdale
Death: An Inside Story: A Book for All Those Who Shall Die by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
In my Time of Dying: How I Came Face-to-Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger (a memoir)
You’ve Reached Sam, by Dustin Thao - a Young Adult Novel
Books for Children
(Caregivers are encouraged to read these books first, they may not all be appropriate for every age or situation.)
When Someone Dies, Sharon Greenlee
What Color is Death, Daddy?, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore
How Do You Care for A Very Sick Bear, Vanessa Bayer
Duck, Death and the Tulip, Wolf Erlbruch
The Goodbye Book, Todd Parr
Always Remember, Cece Meng
Badger’s Parting Gifts, Suan Varley
Bear and Bird, James Skofield and Jennifer Thermes
The Memory Tree, Britta Teckentrup
Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, Tomie dePaola
Maybe Dying is Like Becoming a Butterfly, Pimm van Hest
Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children, Brian Mellonie and Robert Ingpen
Death is Stupid, Anastasia Higginbotham
The Invisible String, Patrice Karst
Tear Soup, Pat Schwiebert
Little Tree, Loren Long
Wherever You Are, my love will find you, Nancy Tillman
**I Miss You: A first look at death, Thomas and Harker
When Dinosaurs Die, Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown
When Miss Bluebird Died, Jennifer Reich, Kristine Kollasch
Cry Heart, But Never Break: Glenn Ringtved, Charlotte Pardi
The Flat Rabbit, Bardur Oskarsson
Sad Isn’t Bad, Mundy
A Stone for Sascha, Aaron Becker
A Terrible Thing Happened, Holmes and Mudlaff
Tess’s Tree, Jess M. Brallier
When I Feel Sad, Cornelia Maude Spelman
Where Do They Go? Julia Alvarez
The Funeral, Matt James
The Purple Balloon, Raschka
The Heart and the Bottle, Oliver Jeffers
When Sadness is at Your Door, Eva Eland
Lasting Love, Wright and Heath
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Boats for Papa, Jessica Bagley
The Memory Box: A book about grief, Joanna Rowland
Map of Memory Lane, Arnoldy
The Fault in Our Stars - a love story between two young cancer patients
Paddleton - Two friends deal with Medical Aid in Dying
Tuesdays With Morrie
Lullabye
The Life of Death (animated on YouTube)
Departures
The Farewell
A Monster Calls
A Good Death
Two Weeks (Starring Sally Fields)
My Girl
Terms of Endearment
After Life
Soul (Disney)
Coco
Movies
Ms. White Light Amazon Prime
Zen and the Art of Dying - profiles Zenith Virago
Griefwalker - profiles Stephen Jenkinson
Documentaries
An Honest Death
Dying Wish (VSED)
End Game
Extremis
Go in Peace
Surviving Death (Netflix)
Pioneers of Hospice
Rosemary Bowen (VSED)
Holding Our Own: Embracing the End of Life by Camilla Rockwell: a moving and tender treatment of life’s final passage, gently guides viewers into this oft-avoided topic. "Holding Our Own" features the stunning work of Vermont artist Deidre Scherer and the heartfelt harmonies of the Hallowell hospice chorus to examine aging and the end of life with a wise and celebratory approach.
End of Life University: Created by Dr. Karen Wyatt, a website, podcast, and resource for anything and all Death Education.
Podcasts
Dead Funny, Dead Serious with Mitzi Weiland
Death: the Podcast
Death by Design Kimberly Paul
Death, et seq. Tanya Marsh
Doing Death: Amanda Blainey
Death in the Afternoon: Caitlin Doughty