San Antonio College Library

Irreverent, thought-provoking and hilarious, Leary's parting shot pioneers new ways to die and new ways for the living to think about death. Urging us to take control of our deaths (and even to determine when and how we will die). Leary relates his own plan for "directed dying," a death we plan and orchestrate to reflect our own lives and values.

Thirty-five years ago, in 1973, the author, then in the middle of life, age 55, wrote Deaths of Man, a set of essays about death. The book was nominated for the National Book Award in Science and recently the American Psychological Association selected it as a "classic" and provided a retrospective review. Now, in 2008 the author, age 90, revisits some of his original concepts with the experience of thirty-five years of clinical perspective and personal...

This book will show the richness and diversity of death as a subject in a variety of literary genres. Second, it will demonstrate the timelessness of the subject of death in literature, as evidence by selections ranging from 2300 B.C. to A.D. 1979. Third, it will reflect a variety of cultural traditions through selections from India, China, Japan, Greece, Nigeria, Lebanon, Russia, Germany, England, France, Spain, Ireland, and the United States. Fourth,...

Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death, and Dying is the first major study of the sexual politics of death in the West. As such, it splits open the silence which both surrounds mortality and shrouds women's relationship to it. Illuminated by a profound yet humorous vision, Lifting the Taboo explores the specific relationship women of many colors, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, their attitudes towards loss, and their disposition...

An examination of the similaries of near-death experiences and those who claim alien abduction. Also includes a discussion of childhood alien encounters and of personalities that are apparently more sensitive to spiritual and visionary encounters.

Attention to psychological and theological responses to death informs this comprehensive overview of biblical perspectives on mortality. Bailey depicts both continuity ad contrast as he moves from ancient to intertestamental literature and then to the New Testament. This work avoids comparative judgments and honors the multiplicity of outlooks which the total canon contains. In addition it evaluates the applicability and effectiveness of various canonical...

There is one thing we can be sure of: we are all going to die. But once we accept that fact, the questions begin. This book examines the myriad questions that arise when we confront the meaning of mortality. Do we have reason to believe in the existence of immortal souls? Can we make sense of the idea of surviving the death of one's body?

"Love and Death in Edith Wharton's Fiction examines the struggle between philosophic and scientific notions of love found throughout Wharton's works. The role of death in romantic relationships highlights the central struggle Wharton saw as implicit in the concept of love: the struggle between Darwin's theory of sexual selection and Plato's ideal love of the soul. It was this tension between the romantic notion of soul mates reuniting and the realistic...

The inescapable reality of death has given rise to much of literature's most profound and moving work. D.J. Enright's wonderfully eclectic selection presents the words of poet and novelist, scientist and philosopher, mystic and sceptic. And alongside these "professional" writers, he allows the voices of ordinary people to be heard; for this is a subject on which there are no real experts and wisdom lies in many unexpected places.