I recently finished “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”. I recommend this book to anyone who is not afraid of the truth. It had a huge effect on me. This book was recommended to me, and I have in turn recommended it to many, and have bought copies as gifts for a few friends.

Knocking on Heaven’s Door is about how we deal with death in the United States. It also an intimate, intensely personal memoir. It quotes facts and figures that are irrefutable and impeccably researched.

Here is the link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Knocking-Heavens-Door-Better-Death/dp/1451641974/

There are only 3 reviews of this book that are not 4 or 5 stars. Most reviewers give it 5 stars, as do I.

Here is just one review of many:

“This is a book so honest, so insightful and so achingly beautiful that its poetic essence transcends even the anguished story that it tells. Katy Butler’s perceptive intellect has probed deeply, and seen into the many troubling aspects of our nation’s inability to deal with the reality of dying in the 21st century: emotional, spiritual, medical, financial, social, historical and even political. And yet, though such valuable insights are presented with a journalist’s clear eye, they are so skillfully woven into the narrative of her beloved parents’ deaths that every sentence seems to come from the very wellspring of the human spirit that is in her. This elegiac volume is required reading for every American adult; it has about it a sense of the universal.” ~ Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, author of How We Die: Reflections of Life’s Final Chapter

Here’s another:

“This is the most important book you and I can read. It is not just about dying, it is about life, our political and medical system, and how to face and address the profound ethical and personal issues that we encounter as we care for those facing dying and death. You will not be able to put this book down. Its tenderness, beauty, and heart-breaking honesty matches the stunning data on dying in the West. A splendid and compassionate endeavor.” ~ Joan Halifax, PhD, Founding Abbot, Upaya Institute/Zen Center and Director, Project on Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death