The end : the human experience of death / Bianca Nogrady.

Beautifully written and highly researched, this book provides a different framework through which to view death instead of the fear and mystery that so often shrouds this incredibly important moment of life. We know so much about birth--women have shared their experiences and medicine has exhaustively documented it. But at the other end of a life, death is hidden, taboo, mysterious, fearful, rarely shared, and often a lonely, dark bookend. Death is one of few experiences that unites every single being on the planet, but we don't talk about it, we try not to think about it, and anyone who breaks these unspoken taboos is viewed as being unnecessarily morbid. Yet many who have been present at the death of a loved one talk of it as being a gift, they have taken part in a profound moment. This is an exploration of that experience, exploring the human experience of death from every angle--the spiritual, the historical, the physical, the metaphysical; from the perspective of those who have witnessed it, those who face it, and those who have somehow stepped back from it. The End investigates an experience common to every single one of us and does so in a way that is engaging, compelling, a bit funny, and a bit quirky in places, sometimes heartbreaking, but most of all fascinating.