On Our Way: The Final Passage Through Life and Death

Kastenbaum is an "old hand" when it comes to death and dying and his experience and skill are seen in this book. He is one of the most prolific thanatologists and one of the most independent in his thinking and writing style. It seems to me the purpose of this book is to free the reader by providing many different ideas on dying from different cultures. The author classifies the different types of dying in an intelligent way. There is a wealth of provocative insights into our own way of dying with the accent on the reader being able to develop a critical look at the different ways of dying from different cultures and times. This book is not a how to book-it is not fromulaic. It is not hot cocoa for the mortal soul. It provides a lot of food for thought. The weakness to this book is it fails to provide a fully constructive approach to the subject of dying because it doesnt provide the scaffolding for an individual to construct their own orientation to dying-given the materials the author has provided. If youre looking for a book that provides a lot of perspective on dying with wit, insight, candor and style this book is a keeper.