Available from the Bookshop
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Dennison A
Uncertain journey
Patten Press
£8.95

This is a personal account - over a number of years - of the experience of being diagnosed, living with and dying of cancer. It is told by a nurse based in the UK who also worked with groups of cancer patients and wrote about this work for professional journals. It is intensely personal but it also has a breadth of vision, encompassing the views of other cancer patients. 
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Dimond B

Legal aspects of death

Quay Books 2008

£22.50

The book is written in a non-legalistic way with the aim of assisting the reader through a complex area of law and providing a helpful reference work on the subject. It covers a wide range of topics; eg  how a body should be laid out;  different  religious practices; the laws relating to advance directives; organ transplants and resuscitation. It includes a helpful glossary, mainly of legal terms. ________________________________________________________________________________

Earle S, Bartholomew C, Komaromy C (eds)

Making sense of death, dying and bereavement: an anthology

Open University Press/Sage 2009

£19.99

This is one of the set texts for the recently updated K260 Open University course on death and dying. It is comprised of 83 short pieces of writing on various aspects of death, dying and bereavement. Many are personal accounts.  The texts are divided into seven sections:  visual images of death, dying and disposal; death and dying in poetry, fiction and the media; death dying and bereavement on the world wide web; caring for people at the end of life; when someone dies; reflecting on traumatic death, mass death and disaster. making sense of the after-life and life after death.
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Earle S, Komaromy C, Bartholomew C (eds)

Death and dying: a reader

Open University Press/Sage 2009

£20.99

This is one of the set texts for the recently updated K260 Open University course on death and dying. There are 34 contributors and many are academics in the UK although there are also writers from many other countries. The book is divided into five sections: understanding death; caring at the end of life; moral and ethical dilemmas in practice; exploring grief and ritual after death; researching death, dying and bereavement.
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Green J, Green M
Dealing with death. A handbook of practices, procedures and law
Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2006
£40.00

A significant part of this book is devoted to the customs of various religions around the time of death.  However, there is also an excellent comprehensive section on legal and technical aspects of death.  This involves information on funeral practices in the UK, medical certification of cause of death, registration of the death, coroners’ enquiries, mortuary practice, exhumation, organ and tissue donation, deaths in disasters, medico-legal aspects at the end of life and last offices.  A very useful reference book.  
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Hinton J
The progress of awareness and acceptance of dying assessed in cancer patients and their caring relatives
£2.00

This is based on the same research as the article ''Assessment of open communication between people with terminal cancer..'', also by John Hinton. One of the most interesting aspects of this research is the fact that concepts such as acceptance were not necessarily fixed over time (the last 2-3 months of life), but evolved as the prospects and qualities of life changed. With regard to acceptance, a number of concepts were used - some being the inevitability of death, faith, spiritual values, completing life, final benefits, humour, and sharing. In other articles on this research it can be seen that views on the desired place of death also fluctuated over this time, depending often on physical symptoms. 
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Kubler-Ross E
On death and dying
Tavistock Publications 1969
£17.99

This is a classic text, which has been criticised for the fact that it outlines stages of mourning in a way that is too prescriptive. These stages were initially applied to dying people but were then considered relevant to many bereaved people. Its most important attribute is the fact that it emphasises the importance of the psychosocial care of dying people. 
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Mitchell M (ed)
Remember me: constructing immortality - beliefs on immortality, life and dying
Routledge 2007
£21.95

Explores a range of perspectives on the meanings attributed to death and to constructions of immortality in a collection of 17 chapters written by an international group of contributors. The authors challenge current notions of bereavement and the boundary between life and death and look at the ways in which relationships continue, endure and perhaps grow after biological death.  Ranges from an article on “dark tourism” to complaints in the NH
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