"Death? I don't think about it."
If this comment attributed to Jean-Paul Sartre is true, then he held a rare position among philosophers: few were those who were not tormented by ideas of death.

In this book, which covers a wide range and offers countless stimuli, Simon Critchley argues that the question of what constitutes a "good death" is always at the center of philosophy, from antiquity to the present day. But what lessons can we draw from the deaths of the philosophers themselves? Of the 190 cases recounted here, many died in strange ways, and there are plenty of incidents of madness, murder, suicide, and serious (but also humorous) ailments. Heraclitus died of suffocation covered in dung; Aristotle committed suicide with a razor; Empedocles leaped willingly into the crater of Mount Etna to become a god; Hegel, dying, said, "Only one person understood me in my life... And he didn't even understand me"; Jeremy Bentham asked to be preserved - today he is on public display at University College London; Nietzsche suffered a nervous breakdown in Turin and sank into madness...

With references ranging from the self-deprecating death haikus of Zen masters to the last words of Christian saints and wise men of our time, "The Book of Dead Philosophers" is a thoughtful and enjoyable book. As Critchley shows, when we study what the great thinkers said about death, our faith in life is renewed and we end up examining the meaning of happiness; to what extent it is achievable, and how long it can last. By learning how to die, we learn how to live.

"You may be surprised, but in the seemingly macabre pages that follow, I am constantly preoccupied with happiness, its meaning, and how it can be achieved..."

(from the author's introduction)