People often ask me what books they can read that address and share more modern perspective shifts around mortality. This post shares my three go-to favorites (and yes, there are more!)

In recent history, terminal illness (our own or someone else’s) was viewed solely as a medical event that needs to be managed, fixed, or cured. I call this the objective. By doing this we often overlooked the meaning, and the opportunities to focus on quality of life, the subjective. That is what is at the heart of the healthier, more human, modern perspectives in these books.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande 

Death is sad but it doesn’t have to be horrible. Horrible is a byproduct of how we do not talk about dying in our culture. A well-respected doctor, in his book, Gawande illuminates some of the blind spots, old paradigms in the healthcare system and ultimately shows how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending.

Katy Butler, a medical journalist, lay-ordained Buddhist and author, covers practical, medical, financial and spiritual matters in her book that can also lead to perspective shifts when it comes to how we live our final years. This book speaks to those seeking agency, comfort and meaning. Katy also started the Slow Medicine Facebook group that supports unrushed medical decisions in the years of aging and dying and caution about high-tech treatments that lead to prolonged suffering. Click here to join Katy's FB group 

This book helped me move from drama to love when it came to caring for my aging parents. It has been a game changer for many of my clients navigating losses due to major life transitions. Frank Ostaseski, co-founder of Zen Hospice, has sat with more than a thousand people at the end of their life, his teachers. Through storytelling, Frank imparts wisdom from these teachers. Each invitation invites the reader to reflect on different aspects of what death/loss can teach us about living fully at any stage of life, how we define meaning and what gets in our way. As an end of life, grief, living losses coach, I appreciate how this book explores loss of all kinds and can help the reader better understand some of the causes of suffering and move through difficult emotions towards transformation.