Learning to Die

Reviews / Votes

"Truth-filled meditations about grace in the face of mortality." @MargaretAtwood "The project of Learning to Die is simple, but harrowing. Bringhurst and Zwicky ponder an all-but-unthinkable question: how should we live in the end times? They don't discount our attempts to stave off environmental catastrophe. But they believe, on the evidence, that it's too little too late. And they go on to ask, How should we face our coming fate? Can we learn, as members of a species run amok, how to perish with a modicum of responsibility and grace? These are artist-thinkers of commanding stature, and the specific answers they give deserve our attention. But what makes Learning to Die indispensable goes even deeper: the example it sets of unblinking courage. It opens a space for human beings to reckon with ultimate things." Dennis Lee, poet and editor "Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky are two of the wisest and most learned animals living among us, poet-creatures who regularly calibrate their awareness by immersing themselves in wild nature and listening quietly for what it has to teach. As feelingful animals, they care deeply for other species, and for their fellow humans as a part ofnot apart fromthe many-voiced earth. In Learning to Die , they offer a kind of piercing wisdom-literature for our time, generous insight for an age of ecological calamity. An essay at the heart of this humble book, entitled 'A Ship from Delos,' has cut me to the core; I can feel it altering my own way in the world." David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal "Guides us towards ways to live and know the situation of climate change." Annie Proulx, The Guardian