Dr. Yalom has written a highly engaging and accessible book about the anxiety of death. He delves into our fears related to death and how this affects how we live. For those familiar with his existential view this is not new territory. However, I find that every time I read Dr. Yalom I am touch by his humanity and this is inspirational on many levels. His use of vingettes from therapy sessions are always illustrative and enriching. Dr. Yalom's writing style is such that all readers, the professional and the lay person, should find this work easy to digest.

I was mesmerized by this eloquent and decidedly secular observation on our individual and collective mortality.
The one thing we all have in common is that we are not just going to die some day, but that we are in fact dying now. Slowly but surely we are melting away into nothingness.

But of course almost everything we do is an act of denial of our impending demise. We seek some kind of immortality in the same way that we seek meaning. These ideas are in constant conflict.

I was amazed that Irvin Yalom was able to maintain his existential riff without delving delving into the waters of spirituality. Still, his secular tales of death and the fear of death are rich and memorable. As are his suggestions for confronting the fear of death and embracing one's mortality.

In spite of my tendency to think that we are essentially spiritual beings having a human experience, I was challenged and rewarded by Yalom's poetic insights into the fundamentally mysterious gift of existence itself and it's paradoxical briefness.

This book is for secularists what "The Road Less Traveled" was to believers.

I highly recommend it. Especially to those inclined to think of themselves as religious.

We can all learn to make the moments count and live in the here and now.

Like Ram Dass said, "Be here now." This wonderful book about death is a tool for living.