Classic literature

Anon, Beowulf (10th -11th c)

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1848)

Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems (2016)

Susan Hill, The Woman in Black (1998)

Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla (1872)

C. S. Lewis, A grief observed (2015)

William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818).

Robert Louis Stevenson, The body snatcher (1884).

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Suicide Club (1878)

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

Alfred Lord Tennyson, In memoriam (1850).

 

Modern literature

Claire Adam, Golden child

Julian Barnes, Levels of life

Anne Beecher, Here comes the miracle

Salena Godden, Mrs Death misses death

Matt Haig, The midnight library

Patricia Highsmith, The talented Mr Ripley

Cathy Hopkins, The kicking the bucket list

Andrew Michael Hurley, Starve Acre

Kis, Danilo, The encyclopaedia of the dead

Andrey Kurkov, Death and the penguin

Andrey Kurkov, Penguin lost

Clare Mackintosh, After the end

Hilary Mantel, The giant, O’Brien

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet

Sylvia Plath, Collected poems

Sylvia Plath, The bell jar

Max Porter, Grief is the thing with feathers

Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Terry Pratchett, Mort

Terry Pratchett, Reaper man

Terry Pratchett, Soul music

Terry Pratchett, Thief of time

Sarah Rayner, One moment, one morning

George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

Muriel Spark, Memento mori

Markus Zusak, The book thief

 

Science fiction and fantasy

Iain M. Banks, Surface detail

Kevin Brockmeier, The brief history of the dead

Philip K. Dick, A maze of death

Philip K. Dick, Ubik

William Gibson, Neuromancer

William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Kazuo Ishiguro, Never let me go

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the sun

Marlon James, A brief history of seven killings

Ursula K. Le Guin, The books of Earthsea

Richard K. Morgan, Altered carbon

Tarjei Vesaas, The ice palace

 

Memoirs

Sue Black, All that remains: a life in death

Sue Black, Written in bone: hidden stories in what we leave behind

Rachel Clarke, Dear life: a doctor's story of love and loss

Caitlin Doughty, From here to eternity

Caitlin Doughty, Smoke gets in your eyes

Niamh Fitzpatrick, Tell me the truth about loss: a psychologist’s personal story of loss, grief and finding hope

Matt Haig, Reasons to stay alive

Thomas Lynch, The undertaking

Anna Lyons and Louise Winters, We all know how this ends

Helen Macdonald, H is for hawk

Kathryn Mannix, With the end in mind

Kenneth McKenzie and Todd Harra, Mortuary confidential

Seamus O’Mahony, The way we die now

Nina Praske, Love in the present tense: a bereaved mum's story

Denise Riley, Time lived, without its flow

Mary Roach, Stiff

Jane Duncan Rogers, Gifted by grief

Cory Taylor, Dying: a memoir

Kavin Toolis, My father’s wake: how the Irish teach us to live, love and die

Carla Valentine, Past mortems: life and death behind mortuary doors