12 Books Every Death-Curious Person Should Read

Author: Cheyenne Zaremba, PhD

I have read a lot of books about death, dying, and grief in the past ten years. Like, a lot of books. On family trips to Barnes & Noble, I could always be found sitting on the floor between the “Self Help” and “Spirituality” sections, reading the inside covers of books on death, grief, and bereavement. What started as a kind of morbid curiosity spiraled into something more serious over the years, and just this past February, I defended my dissertation on U.S. funerals and disenfranchised grief to earn my PhD in Communication. I guess you could say that I know a thing or two about death and grief-based literature. Of all the books I’ve read over the past decade, both for work and for leisure, there are some that I just keep coming back around to read again and again. These are some of those books: 12 books that every death-curious person should read.

1. Notes on Grief - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie’s Notes of Grief is a love letter to her father who died at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unable to travel to see her father or mourn with her family, Adichie grapples with the experience of grief in isolation. This short book offers valuable lessons in love, longing, and loss. I have gifted this book more than any other.

2. The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America – Ann Neumann

I first read this book when I was in my undergrad for a paper I was writing. After reading the book, I sent Neumann an email and asked her if she would agree to do a phone interview with me. For my undergraduate paper. And, shockingly, she agreed. We had a lovely 30-minute conversation on the phone where she told me about how important death care in the U.S. was, and how important it was for people of all ages to explore a willingness to work in proximity with death, since it is a position we will all find ourselves in one day. Neumann’s book is a sensitive and honest look at what it’s like to sit beside someone and be with them at the end-of-life when their body and mind may be failing, but their humanity is ever present.

3. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

If you’ve never read this book, just do yourself a favor and read it. Didion’s style of prose is extremely accessible. She writes honestly, beautifully, and painfully about the loss of her husband and daughter and what it is like to rebuild her world in the aftermath. Any description of this book fails to do the narrative justice. Buy it. Read it. You’ll be grateful you did.

4. On Death and Dying – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

A list of books for the death-curious would be remiss without On Death and Dying. Kübler-Ross’ texts have fundamentally shaped how we talk about death and grief in the public sphere. If you’ve ever had a conversation about the stages of grief (which are far more complicated and non-linear than we often discuss them to be), you’ve talked about Kübler-Ross’ work. Reading about the stages of grief in their intended context—as descriptors for experiences that the dying have as they grapple with their own mortality—is necessary enrichment if one wishes to continue engaging in conversation about death and grief-focused topics.

5. Necropolitics - Achille Mbembe

A bit more of a dense academic text, Mbembe’s work speaks of the extremely important intersection of death and politics. Mbembe builds off the work of French thinker and writer Michel Foucault, specifically Foucault’s notion of biopolitics—the idea that the “state” as a governing apparatus decides and enforces who lives and under what conditions through systematic oppression and systemic conditions. Mbembe argues that biopolitics doesn’t go far enough. Instead, he insists that we must consider how the state also decides and enforces who dies, how they die, and if they are remembered. While theoretically complex, Necropolitics is a critical read for thinking through issues of equity, equality, and humanity as they pertain to death, grief, and public memory.

6. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains – Thomas W. Laqueur

LaQueur’s in a lengthy and hefty tome, but well worth reading for the rich history that he narrates surrounding European and Western funeral customs. I read this book cover-to-cover as a means of research, but there are a variety of chapters that divide the work up into topical niches ensuring that all death historians can find something of interest in the text.

7. Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind – Sue Black

I was gifted this book by my grandparents (it is not unusual for me to receive death and grief-based gifts for birthdays and holidays, and I was thrilled to receive this book) and read it voraciously while lounging in various cemeteries in central Pennsylvania. Black, a prolific anthropologist, works her way through the human body to explain how forensic scientists, archaeologists, and medical examiners are able to make inferences about life from deathly remains. Is it possible for a book about death to be fun? Black’s book certainly is! True crime enthusiasts will find Black’s work especially entertaining for the way she attends to mortal remains.

8. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory – Caitlin Doughty

Doughty could be considered a contemporary of Kübler-Ross when it comes to synonymity with death-related literature. She rose to stardom in the death-positive movement with her YouTube channel, Ask a Mortician, and is the co-founder of The Order of the Good Death. She has written multiple New York Times bestsellers. As this is the first of her books I ever read it has a special place in my heart. An autobiography about her experiences starting out in the mortuary and funeral industry, Doughty offers a look behind the closed doors of the crematorium at the minute details of funeral business. Her combination of close attention to detail and sharp wit make for an engrossing and entertaining read.

9. Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century United States - Russ Castronovo

Necro Citizenship and Necropolitics go hand-in-hand, and if you’ve enjoyed one of these two books already, you will most certainly enjoy the other. Castronovo elucidates the subject position of the socially dead—those who are considered neither person nor citizen in the eyes of the state and the public—and the complex and contradictory role they play in constructing and maintaining standards for personhood, citizenship, and mortality that they themselves are excluded from participating in or benefiting from. Castronovo takes on the difficult task of describing the role that the trans-Atlantic slave trade and enslaved individuals have held in the history of death and grief in the United States. While a difficult read at times, this is a really fascinating book that exposes a lot of the presumed whiteness of U.S. death culture.

10. Advice for Future Corpses (And Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying – Sallie Tisdale

Since reading this book, “future corpse” has become one of my favorite ways to jokingly introduce myself at parties. Tisdale’s book is a great read for those of us who will one day die, which is to say all of us. She offers practical guidance on how to start thinking about and accomplishing many of the necessary tasks of end-of-life, regardless of what stage of life we are presently at. This is a great book for thinking through your own practical end-of-life matters and for talking with close family and friends about your wishes and their wishes.

11. Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief – Cindy Barukh Milstein

I picked this book off the shelf at Left Bank Books Collective, an anarchist bookstore in Seattle, Washington. It just felt like the right place to buy a book about rebellious mourning. Rebellious Mourning explores the complexities of life, loss, and grief under oppressive conditions through vignettes of all genres of writing. This book is a work of art, and to experience it means to open yourself up to viewing life and death differently.

12. No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life – Thich Nhat Hanh

A life-changing book by one of the most empathetic thinkers, writers, and teachers of our time. No Death is a meditative invitation to sit with the thought of your own mortality and consider what it means to live in the presence of your own death. In times of great anxiety, I always return to the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, and No Death is no exception. If you or someone you know struggle with death anxiety or fear about end-of-life this is a great book to read for the sensitive and compassionate way that it discusses life, death, and the circle of existence that encompasses all beings, matter, and energy.

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There are so many good books about death, grief, and bereavement at our fingertips, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by options. Consider these 12 recommendations as various starting points for diving into death-focused literature or even broadening your perspectives on death if you are already an avid death-curious reader.

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Cheyenne Zaremba, 2026 NCA Death & Dying Division Chair

University Email (direct communication): cez5128@psu.edu 

Cheyenne Zaremba has a PhD in Communication Studies. They study the rhetoric of death and dying through the frameworks of cultural studies, performance studies, materiality, and identity. Cheyenne interrogates the presumed whiteness of death to understand how performances in spaces of death and dying, such as cemeteries, hospices, sacred spaces, and funeral homes, represent and reinforce cultural norms for meaning making at end-of-life and postmortem. Additionally, Cheyenne is committed to pursuing inclusive, accessible, and adaptive pedagogical approaches to teaching communication. Cheyenne has been a member of the Death & Dying Division since 2021, when they served as the Graduate Student Representative. They have been published in Text & Performance Quarterly, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, The International Journal of Cultural Studies, and more.