“Irv Yalom has written a beautiful and courageous book—a book that comforts even as it explores and confronts death. Yalom helps us understand that we must all come to grips with a paradox: The physicality of death destroys us; the idea of death saves us.”

“One of America’s finest therapists guides us through one of life’s most challenging tasks in this profoundly helpful book. It will benefit anyone who reads it.”

“Staring at the Sun is neither textbook nor mere self-help. Philosophical it is, but never arid with theory. Its lively chapters are populated with patients whose raw angst Yalom refines into vignettes that are always enlightening and often quite moving. “Death has a long reach,” he writes, “with an impact that is often concealed.” He calls anxiety about death the mother of religion, but says his own work is “rooted in a secular, existential worldview that rejects supernatural beliefs.” With convincing examples, he argues that awareness of mortality “may serve as an awakening experience, a profoundly useful catalyst for major life changes.”