The following is a selected list of readings that may assist you or your family members in end-of-life care as well as help in beginning the healing process following the impending death. Many of these titles can be found anywhere in the United States where books are sold or in local libraries. For additional resources consult your pastor, librarian or local bookstore.

End-of-Life Care

The Hospice Handbook: A Complete Guide
by Larry Beresford

Hospice Handbook is a comprehensive introduction to hospice care. Each chapter ends with a vignette of someone who has benefited from hospice care. The book ends with a list of resources for families confronting life-threatening illnesses, with extensive notes, including suggestions for further reading.

A medical anthropologist and gerontologist's systematic discussion of home dying, organized topically, and filled with generous first-person accounts of those who have participated in home deaths. Preceded and followed by commentary and analysis, including such topics at "The Use of Formal Support" and "Social Support." Good appendices, including one on pain medications.

Dr. Byock himself says in his introduction, "Dying Well is a book about living. It is a book about realizing the human potential to grow as individuals and as members of families through the process of dying".

Callanan and Kelley include numerous examples of Nearing Death Awareness from their years of caring for the dying. They offer practical advice, not only to involved family members, but also to professional caregivers, on how to recognize, understand, and respond to a dying person's messages.

Written by a journalist who spent some 20 months following the life of a relentlessly upbeat breast cancer patient who eventually died at 44. This narrative, with its many dramatic scenes and passages of dialogue, offers a unique glimpse into different axes of response to one person's dying friends, children, husband, and the would-be detached journalist.

A physician and medical school professor offers relatively readable accounts of the specific physical processes by which six major illnesses actually cause death.

A popular Catholic Archbishop of Chicago offers inspirational reflections from a Christian perspective on the last three years of his life, including his fight with cancer and his decisions to forgo a second course of treatment and to die at home.

Written by a former nurse who left the field because it concentrated on the symptoms rather than the whole person, this is a spiritual, even mystical memoir on death, centered on the author's experience with the deaths of her parents, as they succumbed to cancer within a year of each other.

Buckman, himself once diagnosed as having a fatal illness, addresses the patient's need for information, as well as the needs of his or her family and friends; the way to support a dying parent or child; and the complications of caring for those afflicted with AIDS or cancer.

To help people know about the psychological and spiritual terrain that a life-threatening illness will take them into, and the ways in which the diagnosis and treatment is a mythic event in their lives, and in the lives of those who love them. A diagnosis of cancer, AIDS, or any potentially fatal illness is metaphorically a descent into the underworld.

Considered to be one of the best primers for soul work ever written, Thomas Moore, an internationally renowned theologian and former Catholic monk, offers a philosophy for living that involves accepting our humanity rather than struggling to transcend it. By nurturing the soul in everyday life, Moore shows how to cultivate dignity, peace, and depth of character.

Can be a difficult book, it delves into how we live our lives, what creates joy and what creates suffering and how to accept both. Taking responsibility for ourselves and accepting the truth of pain in life is the first step towards happiness. This book is philosophical and contains profound personal stories to illustrate author's points.

From the Forward by Rosalynn Carter Ð "Serious illness and dying now occupy many years of the lives of most of us. Unfortunately, these years are often a time of fear and suffering. But they need not be. Here is the help you need to be sure that these years, whether your own or those of someone you love, are full and rewarding. Here too is help to make sure that the time near death is peaceful and comforted. This, indeed is the Handbook that all of us mortals need."

The Mourning Handbook: The Most Comprehensive Resource Offering Practical and Compassionate Advice on Coping With All Aspects of Death and Dying
by Helen Fitzgerald

From preparing for the death of a loved one to taking care of practical matters to dealing with overwhelming emotions, this most comprehensive guide to grieving, based on the author's experiences as a grief counselor, discusses the issues people face before, during, and after the death of a friend or family member.

Fragments of oral history from people ranging in age from 19 to 87 who have in common with each other and with the authors the loss of parent at an early age. Reflections on the many ways the interviewees (and the authors) have recognized and dealt with the effects of their loss.

An inspiring guide to coping with the loss of a child combines the author's own story with the experiences and wisdom of others who have gone through this tragedy.

A successful Detroit sportswriter reconnects with his former college professor, Morrie Schwartz, after accidentally discovering Morrie is dying from ALS. Fourteen interviews or "classes" with Morrie on Tuesdays followed, and the book recounts these, interspersing recollections of college experiences, to show us how we might learn from Morrie's good example.

Mourning the death of a loved one is a process all of us will go through at one time or another. But whether the death is sudden or anticipated, few of us are prepared for it or for the grief it brings. There is no right or wrong way to grieve; each person's response to loss will be different. Now, in this compassionate, comprehensive guide, Therese A. Rando, Ph.D., bereavement specialist and author of Loss and Anticipatory Grief, leads you gently through the painful but necessary process of grieving and helps you find the best way for yourself.

This book discusses the conditions of grief, understand and coping, surviving specific types of loss (i.e. loss of a spouse, parent, child, accidental death, and suicide), and getting and giving help.

This book touches on all the aspects of grief and grief resolution, including important ideas about self-help and avenues to finish unfinished business and teach people how to let go. It is a well-done book written with wisdom and love, and makes people aware that every ending is also a new beginning.

Based on a proven process and now extensively revised, "The Grief Recovery Handbook" (over 170,000 copies sold) gives grievers the specific actions they need to work through their losses and create a richer, fuller life.

This is a book about death and life, written for those who have sustained a loss of a loved one, ending a chapter, but who have the possibility of beginning a new chapter, drawing its substance from the pages that went before.

Harold Kushner, A Jewish rabbi facing his own child's fatal illness, deftly guides us through the inadequacies of the traditional answers to the problem of evil, then provides a uniquely practical and compassionate answer that has appealed to millions of readers across all religious creeds. A distinguished clergyman offers advice to people of all faiths on how to come to terms with suffering and loss and explains how a belief in God can help readers to experience comfort and understanding.

This is the personal diary of C.S.Lewis of the year that follows the death of his wife from cancer. This is written from a Christian perspective.

Bereaved Children and Teens: A Support Guide for Parents and Professionals
by Earl A. Grollman

A comprehensive guide to helping children and adolescents cope with the emotional, religious, social, and physical aspects of a loved one's death. Topics range from how adolescents grieve differently from adults to concrete ways to help children cope.

Talking About Death: A Dialogue Between Parent and Child
by Earl A. Grollman

Whether through war, a natural disaster, or the serious illness of a loved one or pet, many children must face the reality of death much sooner than their parents would like. This book is designed to help parents and children talk about this difficult time. Illustrated.

This story is a warm, wonderfully wise, and stirringly simple story about a leaf named Freddie Ñ how Freddie and his companion leaves change with the passing seasons, finally falling to the ground with winter's snow. Good for children 3-7 years.

The author succinctly and honestly handles both the emotions stemming from the loss of a beloved pet and the questions about the finality of death, which naturally arise in such a situation.

Borne from actual questions asked by her own daughters, journalist Maria Shriver's What's Heaven? is a gentle narrative following the conversations that pass between a mother and a young daughter in the days immediately following the death of the child's special great-grandmother.

All the woodland creatures love old Badger, who is their confidant, advisor, and friend. When he dies, they are overwhelmed by their loss. Then, they begin to remember. Told simply, directly and honestly, this uplifting story is of tremendous value to both children and their parents.

Saying Goodbye With Love
by Sheila Martin

A practical and straightforward guide to arrangements surrounding death, in a large, workbook format, with chapters ranging from "Planning the Service" and "Visitation and Viewing" to "Writing the Obituary" and "Financial and Legal Matters." Provides the kind of information and judgement we may wrongly expect to have readily at hand from "more experienced " family members.

A highly detailed manual addressing a wide range of organizational and procedural questions, including: the different concerns for "formal, secular", "formal, religious" and "informal, creative" kinds of services; who should officiate and who should participate; checklists for various scenarios; and suggested readings of poetry and selections from the Bible.

An attorney's lengthy guide for the many practical concerns a life-challenging illness creates, from income and work changes, to asset risks, to lifestyle constraints and the possibility of incapacitation. Landay approaches all of these issues with the goal of helping people to continue to "successfully live" even as their condition deteriorates. Includes a resource guide.