Top 10 Ten Books about Death to Read in 2026

In Confessions of a Funeral Director, Caleb Wilde talks about his experiences as a funeral director, and pushes back against our ‘death-negative’ culture. 

Wilde learns, and shares with us how death can illuminate and deepen the meaning of our very existence; he lets us in on his funeral business, practices of embalming, and beautiful stories about families in the wake of death.

Corrupt bodies is an autobiographical look at Peter Everett’s time as a Mortuary  Superintendent in Southwark Mortuary, London, England. 

The book is a shocking, fascinating read as Everett guides us through his life working in a mortuary fraught with scandal, stolen body parts, high-profile murder cases and recycled coffins. 

Told from the man who saw everything with his own two eyes, and worked on 12,000 deaths, 400 of which were murder cases, it is a gruesome, riveting read that you’ll struggle to forget in a hurry.

Caitlin Doughty is a ‘death-positive’ mortician whose memoir of working as a crematory assistant is dark, emotionally heavy, humorous, and fascinating. Doughty holds nothing back as she details the very real issues, roles, trials and tribulations of working within the death industry. 

Gruesome and uplifting, the many stories about corpses, including terms like ‘molten fat’, ‘body froth’ and ‘bubblating’ (which you never unlearn) carry with them a genuine point. It explores how we, in the Western world, have such an aversion to death, and how embracing it will allow us to truly live in the present.

Lydia Dugdale is a Columbia University physician and a specialist in medical ethics and the treatment of older patients. Dugdale argues that too many of us die poorly — whilst modern medicine can work wonders, it has also overmedicated death, often prolonging suffering and stripping the dying of dignity. 

Inspired by a medieval text ‘Ars Moriendi’, the text teaches that dying well requires living well, Dugdale blends ancient wisdom with years of clinical experience, and urges us to prepare for the end by confronting fear, accepting aging, and our mortality, and involving our communities in end of life care.

On June 8, 2010, whilst touring for his memoir Hitch-22, Christopher found himself clutching his chest in excruciating pain, whilst in his hotel room. It was esophageal cancer. 

A short book, at only 100 pages long, it includes essays he wrote detailing the ravages of the disease, and his rejection of religion to shield him from death, which he wanted to confront death head on and with both eyes open. 

In this extremely personal account of his affliction, Hitchens embraces the full spectrum of human emotions as cancer invades his body and compels him to grapple with the enigma of mortality.

Sometimes People Die, A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick, is written by Simon Stephenson and the story surrounds a Scottish doctor as he finds himself working in an small, understaffed hospital in London, St. Lukes, after being suspended for stealing opioids. 

But he isn’t the only one holding a dark secret. too many people are dying, and the staff soon begin to fear a serial killer among them.

A slow-burning thriller, Sometimes People Die enters into the one corner where we think we are safe, in the hands of medical professional.

An eerie and gripping gothic novel, Pine will have you shivering well into the night. 

The story is set in a remote Highland village surrounded by pine forests; the novel follows Lauren, and her father Niall as they navigate through a community steeping in silence, forgetting and secrets — after a mysterious woman appears on the road on Halloween night, buried pasts resurface, such as the disappearance of Lauren's mother, unsettling deaths, and a local teenager that goes missing…

Toon beautifully juggles the supernatural with the trauma of grief and loss from the eyes of a young girl, and her father, who she can’t quite begin to understand.

Under the Whispering Door is a warm, life-affirming tale from author TJ Klune. Work-obsessed Wallace finds himself attending his own funeral and is guided to Charon’s crossing — a peculiar tea shop where the dead pause before crossing over. 

At the tea shop, and with help from its compassionate owner, Wallace accepts his death and discovers the joys he missed in life: friendship, humor and love. With one week to cross over, Wallace attempts to live a lifetime in just seven days. 

The Funeral is an addictive page-turner, guaranteed to keep you glued to the pages until the very end. A woman with a terrible secret is invited to a funeral, she doesn’t want to go, but going is the only way to keep her secret hidden. 

When she arrives at the funeral, she sees the name on the headstone, Alice Anderson. It is her name, but a name she hasn’t gone by in three years.

This novel by Stuart MacBride is a gritty dark tale of twisted murders, a detective on the edge, and a swell of abducted and missing young boys. When a storm rages on the Scottish coast, destroying the cliff face and revealing a gruesome discovery: human remains in one of the locals gardens. 

Full of twists and turns, the macabre tale will keep you holding on for dear life.