The Death-Defying Power of Reading | Tibetan Book of the Dead Book Club

Club Meeting #3: The Death-Defying Power of Reading

When Will Schwalbe would accompany his mother to her chemotherapy sessions, they devised a way to free them to talk about mortality: they traded books and discussed them. These discussions became the basis for Will Schwalbe’s beloved New York Times bestselling memoir The End of Your Life Book Club. Will is a firm believer in the power of books to change existing lives. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is about the power to change future lives. Compare.

About the Speakers

Will Schwalbe is the author of the beloved New York Times bestselling memoir The End of Your Life Book Club and a passionate advocate for literature, literacy, and the joys of reading. His new book, Books for Living, speaks to the profound influence we can have in the lives of others, and the bonds that can be strengthened, through conversations that begin with the sharing of books. Former editor in chief of Hyperion Books and before that of William Morrow, he is now EVP, Editorial Development and Content Innovation for Macmillan.

Ramon N. Prats was the first person to translate The Tibetan Book of the Dead into Spanish. He holds a doctoral degree in Tibetan Studies from the Oriental Institute of the University of Naples (Italy), where he was associate professor of Tibetan language and literature from 1980 to 1995. He was subsequently appointed professor of Buddhist studies at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona (Spain). From 2006 to 2009 he was Senior Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art, where he organized an exhibition on the Bardo Thodrol, among others. Ramon Prats has more than sixty publications to his credit.