Books about Death
This is not your typical non fiction list
Once in a while, I read books which explore the dark (but natural) side of existence and cover what happens with us, our bodies or people around us after we die. For me, it’s also about the stories of people who lived and died.
I promise you won’t regret reading the books below:
“Ghosts of Tsunami” by Richard Lloyd Parry
As is clear from the title, this book is about the 2011 tsunami that killed 18,000 people in Northern Japan.
“Ghosts of Tsunami” retells some of the events of March 11, 2011 and specifically focuses on the tragedy of Okawa Elementary School, where most children and teachers died in tsunami waves.
The book follows the stories of the children’s families, explores fatal decision-making of the school staff that led to the tragedy, and shows how the survivors dealt with their grief.
Richard Lloyd Parry shows how the Japanese society functions and how, although Japan has an objectively democratic system (with independent elections and courts), the system still obeys certain mentality patterns that influences the political and municipal decision making not in the most democratic way.
The author touches on the topic of tsunami ghosts: after the tragedy, there were many recounts in the affected area of people seeing the ghosts of those who perished in the tsunami.
Lloyd Parry does not go the supernatural route, but instead outlines how “believing that dead are part of the world of the living” is one of most deeply ingrained Japanese beliefs.
Another insane fact from the book is that because of the seismic situation, Tokyo is “predestined” to be destroyed to a certain extent, regularly.
If I remember correctly, it is the official scientific numbers that in the next big earthquake and tsunami combination, it is fully expected that around 400,000 people will die in Tokyo alone (this taking into account all the preparations taken already such as reinforced buildings and regular drills of the population!).
In this context, the author offers a very interesting reflection on the Japanese mentality, in a way comparing it to Russian dark fatalism (how would you feel if you knew you could die under the debris of your house any day?)
Very moving book that you can’t put down. One of the best ones l’ve read last year for sure.
My personal rating: 10/10
The book is available on Amazon
“Written in Bone” by Sue Black
This book is basically true crime meets forensic anthropology.
Sue Black is one of the leading forensic anthropologists in the UK: these are the professionals dealing with identification of bones. Forensic anthropologists mostly come to the crime scene much later than the “normal” forensic pathologists (when mostly only the bones are left).
Sue Black separates this book into chapters based on the bone she’s talking about (going from head to toe). She’s explaining basic info about the bones at issue which was really interesting (e.g. how it is structured, how it develops, what it is needed for).
She then outlines some real life cases she worked on where that bone in particular was of importance.
Sue writes that real life is much more shocking than any crime shows, and her cases do prove that (some of them are absolutely insane).
If you like true crime genre, this book will be an interesting read. It does get too dry at times (some parts basically read as anatomy lecture), but it was a really good book overall.
My personal rating: 7/10
The book is available on Amazon
“Unnatural Causes” by Dr Richard Shepherd
Richard Shepherd is one of the top forensic pathologists in Britain (now you know the difference between forensic pathologist and anthropologist 😉).
“Unnatural causes” explores Shepherd’s private and professional life:
His mother’s death when he was very young.
His motivation to become a forensic pathologist.
His work in the aftermath of major tragic events (IRA bombings, Diana’s death, 9/11 and attacks in the London underground).
His PTSD after performing post-mortem on more than 20,000 bodies throughout his career.
What was particularly interesting for me was his opinions on the imperfections of the legal system. As a forensic pathologist, he had to appear in court regularly where, due to the adversarial nature of our criminal justice, his expertise was often criticised by the barristers, depending on what viewpoint they wanted to defend. Facts and truths are twisted, depending on who you represent in court.
Shepherd’s personal insights into the developments of our social and legal system are just brilliant (i.e. how in the 80s, body fat and drug consumption were nowhere close to what they are now; how disturbingly common the cases of death in prison are, especially for the people of color).
“Truth is based upon knowledge. So, of course, it can be compromised by incomplete knowledge. As a pathologist I was now learning that truth could be directly affected by choices I made, by how many facts I chose to study. It was the first step in what was to become a lifelong examination of [elastic] nature of truth”.
The memoir is really captivating, and very humane. My personal rating: 9/10
The book is available on Amazon
