"Excellent. A fine example of what popular philosophy can be: wide-ranging and thought-provoking, in little more than 100 pages. May grasps the real paradox of mortality: that the fact of death imbues our life with passion and urgency, but it is that very passion for life that makes death tragic." - Financial Times "May draws on insights ranging from the Stoics to Heidegger with incursions into famous arguments by Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams on the way. Yet, May never loses his ability to write clearly and engagingly. Many books on death discuss a wider range of issues. Some discuss clinical definitions of death in order to resolve bioethical issues. Others discuss the morality of killing and whether abortion and euthanasia are cases of murder. This book does neither. It focuses only upon the existential significance of death and on the difference it should make to the way we live our lives. If it spends a lot of time on what may seem in the end to be simple and homely truths it does so because only be considering all the aspects of this issue and by exploring them in depth can the reader be taken on a journey that will truly be one of discovery and inspiration." - Metapsychology "Death is scholarly enough for the academic interested in a critical examination of theory and argument concerning death, while at the same time accessible enough for the reader interested in an introduction to philosophical thought on the topic, and to philosophical thought in general. All readers will appreciate this book's ability to encourage and compel its reader to reflect on life and death in a philosophical and personal way. It is a fine achievement to make philosophy personally meaningful, and Death succeeds in this regard." - Philosophy in Review

Todd May is Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University, North Carolina.

Acknowledgements 1. Our dealings with death 2. Death and immortality 3. Living with death Further reading Index