Death positive books

Many of these books are not exclusively about death but have mortality as their subject. The aim is to show how literature has represented death. Please check the content of the books before borrowing them from the library. For more Death Positive titles, please check our online catalogue.

Adult Non-Fiction

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Notes on Grief
• Anthea Allen – Life, Death and Biscuits
• Anon (ed. John Romer) - The Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Sasha Bates - Languages of Loss: A Psychotherapist’s Journey Through Grief
• Ernest Becker - The Denial of Death
• Sue Black - Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind
• Erica Buist - This Party’s Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World’s Death Festivals
• Ashley Cain – Strong: Life, Loss and Eternal Love for My Daughter
• Rachel Clarke - Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss
• Richard Coles – The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss
• Rob Delaney – A Heart That Works
• Emily Dickinson - Complete Poems
• Joan Didion – The Year of Magical Thinking
• Caitlin Doughty - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematorium
• Caitlin Doughty - From Here to Eternity
• Hope Edelman - The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way on the Long Path of Grief
• Mark Fisher - Ghosts of My Life
• Penny Freeman - Handling Bereavement
• Ben Goldsmith – God is an Octopus: Love, Loss and a Calling to Nature
• Bruce Greyson – After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond
• Michael Hebb - Let’s Talk about Death (over Dinner): The Essential Guide to Life’s Most Important Conversation
• Rachel Hewitt – In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors
• Richard Holloway - Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death
• Emma Hopkinson – It’s Your Loss
• Sarah Jones - Funerals Your Way: A Person-Centred Approach to Planning a Funeral 
• Paul Kalanithi - When Breath Becomes Air
• Elaine Kasket - All the Ghosts in the Machine: The Digital Afterlife of Your Personal Data
• Christopher Kerr – Death is But a Dream
• Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse - Living is Dying: How to Prepare for Death, Dying and Beyond
• Adrian Lewis – A Guide to Handling Bereavement
• C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed
• Cariad Lloyd – You Are Not Alone
• Anna Lyons and Louise Winters - We All Know How This Ends: Lessons about Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying
• Kenneth McKenzie & Todd Harra - Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt
• Kathryn Mannix - With the End in Mind
• Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird - Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death
• Wendy Mitchell – One Last Thing
• BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger - A Beginner's Guide to the End: How to Live Life and Face Death
• Blake Morrison – And When Did You Last See Your Father?
• John Niven – O Brother
• Mike Palmer, Tim Owen and Andy Airey – Three Dads Walking: 300 Miles of Hope
• Sylvia Plath - Collected Poems
• Nina Praske - Love in the Present Tense: A Bereaved Mum's Story
• Denise Riley - Time Lived, Without its Flow
• Alice Roberts - Crypt
• Juliet Rosenfeld - The State of Disbelief: A Therapist’s Story of Love, Death and Mourning
• Liz Rothschild (editor) - Outside the Box: Everyday Stories of Death, Bereavement and Life
• James Runcie – Tell Me Good Things
• Georgina Scull - Regrets of the Dying
• Richard Shepherd - The Seven Ages of Death: A Forensic Pathologist’s Journey Through Life
• Patrick Stokes - Digital Souls: A Philosophy of Online Death
• John Troyer - Technologies of the Human Corpse
• Carla Valentine - Past Mortems: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors
• Christie Watson - The Language of Kindness
• Rachel Wilson – Losing Young: How to Grieve When Your Life is Just Beginning
• Irvin Yalom - Staring at the Sun: Being at Peace with Your Own Mortality: Overcoming the Dread of Death
• Michelle Zauner – Crying in H Mart

Adult Fiction

• Mitch Albom - The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Anne Beecher - Here Comes the Miracle
• Carys Bray - The Museum of You
• Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights
• Ramsey Campbell - The Lonely Lands
• Philip K. Dick - Ubik
• Don DeLillo – Point Omega
• Sheridan Le Fanu - Carmilla
• Sebastian Faulks - The Fatal Englishman
• William Gibson - Neuromancer
• Salena Godden - Mrs Death Misses Death
• William Golding - Lord of the Flies
• Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
• Susan Hill - The Woman in Black
• Andrew Michael Hurley - Starve Acre
• Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
• Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle
• Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings
• Shehan Karunatilaka – The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
• Stephen King - Revival
• Dean Koontz – After Death
• Danilo Kiš - The Encyclopedia of the Dead
• Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Chronicle of a Death Foretold
• Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
• Maggie O’Farrell - Hamnet
• Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
• Edgar Allan Poe - The Portable Edgar Allan Poe
• Max Porter - Grief is the Thing with Feathers
• Terry Pratchett - Mort
• Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man
• Sarah Rayner - One Moment, One Morning
• Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
• Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
• Muriel Spark - Memento Mori
• Bram Stoker - Dracula
• Tarjei Vesaas - The Ice Palace
• Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief

Children (general)

• Aaron Becker - A Stone For Sascha
• Britta Teckentrup - The Memory Tree
• Joseph Coelho and Allison Colpoys – If All the World Were…
• Benji Davies - Grandad’s Island
• Nicola Davies - The Pond
• Sandra Dieckmann - Waiting for Wolf
• Arlen Grad Gaines and Meredith Englander Polsky (editors) - I Have a Question about Death: A Book for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder or Other Special Needs
• Dawn Hewitt - When Someone Dies
• Oliver Jeffers - The Heart and the Bottle
• Patrice Karst - The Invisible String
• Judith Kerr - Goodbye Mog
• Jayde Perkin - Mum’s Jumper
• Molly Potter - Let's Talk About When Someone Dies
• Hilary Robinson - The Copper Tree: Helping a Child Cope with Death and Loss
• Michael Rosen - Michael Rosen's Sad Book
• Britta Teckentrup - The Memory Tree
• Isabel Thomas and Daniel Egnéus - Fox: A Circle of Life Story
• Susan Varley - Badger’s Parting Gifts
• Harry Woodgate - Grandad’s Camper

Older Children

• Richard Adams – Watership Down
• David Almond – Skellig
• Ali Benjamin – The Thing About Jellyfish
• Kacen Callender - King and the Dragonflies
• Kate DiCamillo - The Tiger Rising
• Morris Gleitzman – Two Weeks with the Queen
• Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom
• Linda Newbery - Lob
• Jion Sheibani - Leo Says Goodbye
• Ross Welford - The 1,000-Year-Old Boy
• E.B. White - Charlotte’s Web
• Jacqueline Wilson - The Cat Mummy

Teenage

• Akemi Dawn Bowman - Summer Bird Blue
• Sophie Cameron - Out of the Blue
• Joseph Coelho – The Girl Who Became a Tree
• Ava Dellaira - Love Letters to the Dead
• Wolf Erlbruch - Death, Duck and the Tulip
• Tyler Feder - Dancing at the Pity Party
• Louise Finch - The Eternal Return of Clara Hart
• Gayle Forman – If I Stay
• Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
• John Green - The Fault in Our Stars
• Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd - A Monster Calls
• Katherine Paterson - Bridge to Terabithia
• Jason Reynolds – The Boy in the Black Suit
• Jewell Parker Rhodes – Ghost Boys
• Julian Sedgwick – Tsunami Girl
• Adam Silvera - History is All You Left Me
• Adam Silvera - They Both Die at the End
• Julie A. Stokes - You Will Be Okay