Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.
This week Hero Press announced that they will publish my first non-fiction book D is for Death in April 2024. It’s been a project of love and has been all-consuming but I am excited that you will finally get to read it in a few months. In the meantime, here is the blurb.
| Hero acquires unique A to Z guide to death |
| Hero Press has acquired world rights for D is for Death by Sophie Duffy. This fascinating A to Z of death will be published in the UK on 20th April 2024. Rights were acquired by Christian Müller, Commissioning Editor of Hero Press direct from the author. D is for Death explores the mysteries of mortality as Sophie Duffy takes you on an unforgettable alphabetical journey through life’s ultimate enigma. From accidents and bodies, to contagion and ghosts, each letter unveils a new facet of our shared human experience with death.Delve into the peculiar choices for the disposal of your corpse, uncover the power of elegies and epitaphs, and venture into the realm of the paranormal. Reflect on the impact of climate change, explore the significance of war and ponder the mysteries that defy explanation. Learn the secrets of the ancient yew tree and celebrate death’s place in cultures around the world. D Is for Death is not just a book: it’s a captivating and thought-provoking adventure that challenges perceptions and leaves you with a profound appreciation for the one certainty that binds us all – the journey from A to Z, where death becomes a quirky guide through life’s mysteries. Christian Müller, Hero Press’s Commissioning Editor comments: ‘This compelling, empathetic book is at once a memoir, a practical guide for grief and a cultural history of death, full of fascinating and surprising facts. I don’t think I’ve read anything like it before, and I hope Sophie’s writing will encourage anyone who reads it to look at death in a new light.’ Sophie Duffy comments: ‘When I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer during lockdown 2020, I started to write a book about death and our evolving attitudes to it in the UK. At a time of mass grief and personal trauma, I wanted to do something positive: To help prepare us, practically and emotionally, for our own death and for the death of others, expected or not. I am not an expert in any particular death area. I am not an undertaker, an archaeologist, a surgeon, or an end-of-life doula. Instead, I am a curator of death, drawing on different areas and disciplines to show the state of play of death and dying in modern Britain with a remit to help us become more death-positive.’ |
I have spent the last few years as a tombstone tourist, church crawler and curator of all things death. Not because I am morbid but because I am on a mission to help us all become more #deathpositive. I want us to talk to each other about our hopes and fears. To tell our stories. And to listen. Then maybe we can all live a better, more fulfilling life.
If you have any stories, let me have them and I will post them on here. Otherwise, I’ll be popping in to tell you some of my own stories, or to share some of my gathered facts about death and dying.
For all media enquiries please contact lucy.chamberlain@legendtimesgroup.co.uk
Photo by Kristy Garland, taken at St Bridget’s, West Kirby
sophieduffy 
Congratulations Sophie. D is for Death sounds like a wonderful way to explore a difficult subject and I’m sure will be both be informative and a source of help and strength to many – as well as a great read.