Best of
Death

1993

Baby


Patricia MacLachlan - 1993
    They come to love this baby as their own, all the while knowing that eventually Sophie's mother will return one day to take her from them.

Ritual: Power, Healing and Community


Malidoma Patrice Somé - 1993
    By telling stories of the rituals of his native West African Dagara culture, and of his own experiences in the tribal community, he makes a convincing case that the lack of ritual in the Western world is a fundamental reason that the fabric of society is unraveling. "The hurt that a person feels in the midst of this modern culture should be taken as a language spoken by the body," writes Somé. "Our soul communicates things to us that the body translates as need, or want, or absence. So we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul." The name Malidoma means "he who is to be friends with the stranger/enemy," and Somé, who has doctorates from the Sorbonne and Brandeis, abandoned his teaching career at Brandeis at the instruction of village elders to devote himself completely to speaking and, with his wife Sobonfu, conducting workshops on ritual."The question is, can the modern world find ways to perceive the subtle knowledge and imagery of the tribal world? Can Western understanding open a place for tribal visions of spiritual life and community rituals to enter? Malidoma Somé is uniquely qualified to find the thresholds between the worlds and hold the gates open." —Michael Meade

Looking for Atlantis


Colin Thompson - 1993
    When a seafaring grandfather returns home for the last time, his ten-year-old grandson searches for the great treasure hidden in the sailor's old wooden chest.  But Grandfather's legacy is much more than gold coins--it is the promise that the imagination holds the mightiest treasure of all.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Liberation Through Understanding the Between


Padmasambhava - 1993
    

The Loss of a Pet: A Guide to Coping with the Grieving Process When a Pet Dies


Wallace Sife - 1993
    While you can never be completely prepared for that time, what is offered by Dr. Wallace Sife in these pages can help you draw upon new strength to ease your grief and pain.In this fully revised and expanded edition of the award-winning book "The Loss of a Pet," Dr. Sife, one of the pioneering authors and counselors in the field of pet bereavement, covers all viewpoints of bereavement for a beloved animal companion. This book includes practical suggestions, as well as brief case histories, and illustrates the insights that Dr. Sife has gleaned from his many years of experience.In addition to helping the reader cope with the death of a much-loved pet, "The Loss of a Pet" addresses pet losses that are not death-related. Dr. Sife has specially designed this book to help you learn more about yourself through the grieving process and to successfully cope with this unique kind of loving and grief?and, most importantly, to help you realize that you are not alone.

Companion Through The Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief


Stephanie Ericsson - 1993
    In Companion Through the Darkness, Stephanie Ericsson defines grief as "the constant reawakening that things are now different." Using a very simple format -- which combines excerpts from her own diary writings with brief essays -- she vividly speaks the language of loss and captures the contradictory, wrenching, and chaotic emotions of grief. The book can be opened at any point to chapters no more than a few pages long on such themes as: Abandonment: The sudden state I am forced into. I no longer belong to you. I no longer belong to anyone.Rage: The state I use to survive seemingly moments of intolerable pain.Humor: The backside of agony.Pity: The look on people's faces when they haven't a clue what to say to me.Transition: The moments, strung out over months, when I know I am no longer the woman I was, but not quite the woman I am becoming.The result is compelling, intimate, and heartbreakingly truthful -- a book that promises to be enormously sought-after support and touchstone for all those making their own journey through grief.

Glimpses Beyond Death's Door


Brent L. Top - 1993
    Rich with scripture and the words of modern prophets. A positive, upbeat tone to death as being, certainly for the faithful Church member, the beginning of a beautiful and happy life. Enlightening and exciting. While emphasizing that we must examine these accounts carefully and perhaps critically because conclusions must conform to Church doctrine—since doctrine comes only from the standard works and modern prophets—the authors say, "We were amazed at the similarities and consistencies between near-death accounts and the doctrines of the restored gospel." The reader accordingly will be fascinated with the discussion on what the NDE's report: A "being of light" who greeted them in the spirit world; one's sense of having a perfect, vitalized spirit body; the rapid, graphic review of one's mortal life; seeing populated cities of dazzling brilliance; meeting with loved ones; communication by thought transference; spirits in radiant white robes; an intense, dynamic light that does not hurt the spirit eyes; travel at phenomenal speeds; all levels of beauty and brilliance in the different realms and conditions; expanded comprehension and memory powers; gorgeously beautiful scenery and vegetation. All this and much more in an environment which NDE's describe as all-encompassing, ineffable light and love.

To Hell with Dying


Alice Walker - 1993
    A loving remembrance of a common man whose humanity Walker makes memorable.”--Booklist “Overflowing with compassion, humor, and good sense, [it is] a fine story of deep feeling.”--Kirkus Reviews

Beyond Death's Door


Brent L. Top - 1993
    A new and different look at near-death experiences (NDEs) is presented in this book. It considers NDEs in light of LDS doctrine revealed truth. Rich with scripture and the words of modern prophets, this book offers informed comment on afterlife conditions, shows where LDS doctrine seems to support NDE reports.

Compulsive Beauty


Hal Foster - 1993
    In Compulsive Beauty, Foster reads surrealism from its other, darker side: as an art given over to the uncanny, to the compulsion to repeat and the drive toward death. To this end Foster first restages the difficult encounter of surrealism with Freudian psychoanalysis, then redefines the crucial categories of surrealism--the marvelous, convulsive beauty, objective chance--in terms of the Freudian uncanny, or the return of familar things made strange by repression. Next, with the art of Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, and Alberto Giacometti in mind, Foster develops a theory of the surrealist image as a working over of a primal fantasy. This leads him finally to propose as a summa of surrealism a body of work often shunted to its margins: the dolls of Hans Bellmer, so many traumatic tableaux that point to difficult connections not only between sadism and masochism butal so between surrealism and fascism. At this point Compulsive Beauty turns to the social dimension of the surrealist uncanny. First Foster reads the surrealist repertoire of automatons and mannequins as a reflection on the uncanny processes of mechanization and commodification. Then he considers the surrealist use of outmoded images as an attempt to work through the historical repression effected by these same processes. In a brief conclusion he discusses the fate of surrealism today in a world become surrealistic. Compulsive Beauty not only offers a deconstructive reading of surrealism, long neglected by Anglo-American art history, but also participates in a postmodern reconsideration of modernism, the dominant accounts of which have obscured its involvements in desire and trauma, capitalist shock and technological development.

Waiting for the Whales


Sheryl McFarlane - 1993
    And waits. Only when the whales return each year to the bay in front of his cottage is his loneliness eased. One day, his daughter and her baby return home to live with the old man, bringing a renewed sense of purpose to his life. As his granddaughter grows, the old man passes on a wealth or knowledge and wisdom as well as his passion for the whales. And each year they wait together for the whales to appear. A gentle story that illuminates the unique friendship between grandparent and child, Waiting for the Whales also suggests that aging and death are only part of a greater cycle of rebirth and continuity.

Cinderella


David Delamare - 1993
    Young readers are certain to be enchanted anew by this oldest rags-to-riches story, now in a romantic Venetian setting magically painted by the author. Full color.

Midwife for Souls


Kathy Kalina - 1993
    It blends practical psychological insights with an emphasis on the importance and power of prayer.

Someday Heaven (Children/youth)


Larry Libby - 1993
    But in "Someday . . . Heaven, " Larry Libby gives thoughtful, comforting answers to difficult questions children wonder about Heaven.

Ramlin Rose: The Boatwoman's Story


Sheila Stewart - 1993
    Carrying a wide variety of cargoes to such destinations as the Potteries, the textile mills of Lancashire, the papermills of London, the colleges of Oxford, they struggled on against increasing competition from rail and road traffic to maintain their place in the country's economy. Yet, little has been recorded about the lives of the canal families, and in particular, the women.