Maura Spiegel

The best classic and contemporary writing on mortality-from Montaigne to Monty Python-to produce an essential resource for the heart and mind. 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, 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A compelling collection of poems, fiction, letters, historical documents, essays, and narrations from a wide variety of writers, including:Vladimir Nabokov - John Ashbery - Samuel BeckettAdam Smith - Simone de Beauvoir - Grace PaleyGiovanni Boccaccio - Bertolt Brecht - Roland BarthesJames Baldwin - Primo Levi - Anne Sexton Luis Buñuel - Paul Monette - Jessica Mitford - Stanley Elkin