Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour, and now the Library Team will be offering related reading lists based on the topic of Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Dr. Roxy Manning and Rev. Shawn Gauthier on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024 at 11 a.m.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Living through Mourning: Finding Comfort and Hope When a Loved One Has Died, by Harriet Sarnoff Schiff, 1987, 150 SCH [From LibraryThing: “Losing a loved one is one of the hardest parts of life. With sensitivity and wisdom, Harriet Sarnoff Schiff shares advice to help mourners find comfort amidst grief and hope when a loved one has passed. Supported by interviews with the bereaved and with funeral directors, therapists, and clergymen, this reference helps guide mourners through the grieving process”].
2. Straight Talk about Death for Teenagers: How to Cope with Losing Someone You Love, by Earl A. Grollman, 1993, 155.9 GRO [From LibraryThing: “Suggests ways to deal with the grief and other emotions felt after the death of a loved one and to discover how to go on living”].
3. Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life, by Megory Anderson, 2003, 155.9 AND [From LibraryThing: “Explores difficult questions surrounding the act of dying and attendant care, offering thoughtful rituals and prayers to support the needs of the dying while comforting the living”].
4. Helping Children Grieve, by Theresa Huntley, 1999, 155.9 HUN [From LibraryThing: “This straightforward book helps adults talk to children in meaningful ways, nurturing their faith and building their emotional strength during a time of crisis. The author explains common reactions (emotional, physical, and behavioral) parents can expect from children of all ages, and offers adults the spiritual tools they need to help children cope with a significant loss”].
5. Death’s Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve: A Cultural Study, by Sandra M. Gilbert, 2006, 155.9 GIL [Gift of Jack Jefferson. From LibraryThing: “Critic, poet, and memoirist Sandra M. Gilbert explores our relationship to death through literature, history, poetry and societal practices. Seneca wrote, “Anyone can stop a man’s life but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.” This inevitability has left varying marks on all human cultures. Exploring expressions of faith, burial customs, photographs, poems, and memoirs, Sandra M. Gilbert examines both the changelessness of grief and the changing customs that mark contemporary mourning”].
6. How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter, by Sherwin B. Nuland, 1994, 616.07 NUL [Gift of Arthur Hughes. From LibraryThing: “There is a vast literature on death and dying, but there are few reliable accounts of the ways in which we die. The intimate account of how various diseases take away life, offered in How We Die, is not meant to prompt horror or terror but to demythologize the process of dying to help us rid ourselves of that fear of the terra incognita. Though the avenues of death – AIDS, cancer, heart attack, Alzheimer’s, accident, and stroke – are common, each of us will die in a way different from any that has gone before. Each one of death’s diverse appearances is as distinctive as that singular face we each show during our lives. Behind each death is a story. In How We Die, Sherwin B. Nuland, a surgeon and teacher of medicine, tells some stories of dying that reveal not only why someone dies but how. He offers a portrait of the experience of dying that makes clear the choices that can be made to allow each of us his or her own death”].
7. The Tibetan book of Living and Dying, by Rinpoche Sogyal, 2002, 294 SOY [Gift of Stan Wood. From LibraryThing: “… Buddhist meditation master and international speaker Sogyal Rinpoche brings together the ancient wisdom of Tibet with modern research on death and dying and the nature of the universe. With unprecedented scope, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying clarifies the majestic vision of life and death that underlies The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Sogyal Rinpoche presents simple yet powerful practices from the heart of the Tibetan tradition that anyone, whatever their religion or background, can do to transform their lives, prepare for death, and help the dying. Rinpoche shows the hope there is in death: how we can go beyond denial and fear to discover what it is in us that survives death and is changeless. He presents a lucid, inspiring, and complete introduction to the practice of meditation, to karma and rebirth, and to the trials and rewards of the spiritual path. He gives advice on how to care for the dying with love and compassion and offer them spiritual assistance. …”].
8. Life After Death, by Tom Harpur, 1991, 202.3 HAR [The Julian Fears Library. From LibraryThing, stating it’s from the hardcover edition: “Is there life after death? This question has puzzled humankind from time immemorial. For thousands of years religions the world over have taught that life does not end at death. Ancient Egyptians used to bury boats with their dead for transport to a new life. Medieval Christendom was rife with graphic, “eye-witness” descriptions of heaven and hell. In the West today, many people claim to have seen or heard from the dead; others have “remembered” past lives while under hypnosis. Still other have experienced “death” and have returned with remarkably similar stories to tell. Yet sceptics, agnostics, and atheists have challenged or rejected the notion of an afterlife, arguing that there is no proof of it whatsoever. Who is right? In Life After Death, Tom Harpur, religious scholar, journalist, and best-selling author, takes a fresh and wide-ranging look at the question. He searches with an open mind, not for proof, but for evidence, within science, psychology, the Bible, the tenets of world religions, and the extraordinary experiences of ordinary people. And the evidence he meticulously assembles points unfalteringly towards one, logical conclusion: “Death is very much like birth. It is the traumatic but essential passage into a new phase of life.” Life After Death is an extensively researched and eloquently reasoned investigation, which radiates the author’s intelligence and scholarship. Harpur’s powerful conclusions will challenge believers and sceptics alike. One thing is certain – his message will inspire all readers to reassess the meaning of life”].
9. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, 2004, FIC SEB [From LibraryThing: “ “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her — her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy”].