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A compelling collection of poems, fiction, letters, historical documents, essays, and narrations from a wide variety of writers, including: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 Beckett
Adam Smith – Simone de Beauvoir – Grace Paley
Giovanni Boccaccio – Bertolt Brecht – Roland Barthes
James Baldwin – Primo Levi – Anne Sexton
Luis Buñuel – Paul Monette – Jessica Mitford – Stanley Elkin

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, editors Maura Spiegel and Richard Tristman have gathered the best classic and contemporary writing on mortality-from Montaigne to Monty Python-to produce an essential resource for the heart and mind. These 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 A compelling collection of poems, fiction, letters, historical documents, essays, and narrations from a wide variety of writers, including: Vladimir Nabokov- John Ashbery- Samuel Beckett Adam Smith- Simone de Beauvoir- Grace Paley Giovanni Boccaccio- Bertolt Brecht- Roland Barthes James Baldwin- Primo Levi- Anne Sexton Luis Buñuel- Paul Monette- Jessica Mitford- Stanley Elkin