The Grim Reader

The fear of death, the pain of bereavement, the art of consolation, and the custom of mourning-these are experiences with which all mortals must reckon. In The Grim Reader, editors Maura Spiegel and Richard Tristman have gathered the best classic and contemporary writing on mortality-from Montaigne to Monty Python-to produce an essential resource for the heart and mind. These idiosyncratic and always enlightening pieces are grouped into thematic parts in which a diversity of perspective on death are revealed. From death in its most personal sphere to the major issues of death in the public realm, The Grim Reader offers a fresh and unmediated encounter with mortality and the many dimensions of grief and recovery.

A compelling collection of poems, fiction, letters, historical documents, essays, and narrations from a wide variety of writers, including:

Vladimir Nabokov- John Ashbery- Samuel Beckett
Adam Smith- Simone de Beauvoir- Grace Paley
Giovanni Boccaccio- Bertolt Brecht- Roland Barthes
James Baldwin- Primo Levi- Anne Sexton
Luis Buñuel- Paul Monette- Jessica Mitford- Stanley Elkin