When Death Comes

A sweeping and personal book illuminating the philosophical, psychological, and transcendent dimensions of our shared experience of death and dying. -- Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
Any subject to which Evan Thompson directs his razor-sharp mind in response to his beautiful heart is a subject worthy of our attention. This offering is a masterpiece of depth, subtlety, and emotional intelligence. It illuminates from many angles the ultimate challenge we face as human beings—our finitude, and that of all those we know and love. -- Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) and author of Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness
Philosopher Evan Thompson's remarkable new book When Death Comes is a wise and unflinching exploration of the experience of dying and death. Diving deep into philosophy, art, the power of myths, grief, the realization of our own mortality, and yes, science, the reader discovers that death is our ultimate transformation. The final chapter on love and hope bring resolution to the mystery of death. This book is a powerful exploration of what it means to die. -- Joan Halifax, abbot, Upaya Zen Center, author of Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death
Death, the ultimate transformative experience, awaits us all. Drawing on philosophy, literature, and the testimony of the dying, this sensitive and insightful meditation explores how letting go of control can open the dying to an unexpected sense of belonging to a larger whole. Thompson shows us that to face death well is to bear witness: to be present, in love and grief, with those who are dying. -- L. A. Paul, Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and professor of cognitive science, Yale University
Evan Thompson has written that very rare book that subjects scientific claims about life and death to the critical scrutiny of human experience itself. He does this movingly with help from some of the great stories in literature and his own life. A must-read as a thinking person's meditation on a mortal life with hope. -- Allan Kellehear OBE, University of Northumbria at Newcastle
With rigor and compassion, Thompson exhorts us to take seriously an idea that is at once simple and yet utterly confounding: that we die, and that death is something most of us, however paradoxically, live through. In a discussion ranging across philosophy, medicine, neuroscience, and religion, When Death Comes explores what we can know about this final opportunity for growth, recognition, love, forgiveness, hope, and renewal—and even salvation. By one of our most important living philosophers, this book is both a quiet meditation and an invitation to wake up. -- Alva Noë, author of The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are