Recs if you like Death, Dissection and the Destitute...

Death will unfailingly find every person to have ever lived, yet is treated as a taboo topic in some cultures, causing extreme, pervasive anxiety. This nonfiction list aims to broaden understanding of this inevitability, both to hopefully negate some of the anxiety as well as satisfy some of our more morbid curiosities. It also aims to show that death is another, still useful, stage in the life cycle, aiding those that remain by helping to advance medicine, solve crimes, or understand art.

Nonfiction books to explore your morbid curiosity. Topics include death, pathogens, the paranormal, and more.

Check out my list horror nonfiction for books about horror media.

how we keep them, how they happen, how they taste, how we think about them, and everything else in-between

Books cited in Hayley Campbell’s “All the Living and the Dead.” Incomplete as of 6/12/26.