A Beginner’s Guide to Dying : The Sunday Times Bestseller, ‘Has anyone ever written a more inspirational paean to the joy of life?’ Daily Mail

Published 14/08/2025 | Paperback / softback,
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As featured on BBC Radio 4’Funny and touching’ Sunday Times’Extraordinary’ Observer’Full of both wisdom and humour’ Julia Samuel’Funny, moving, brave’ Jeremy Bowen’I had the privilege to conduct Simon’s last broadcast interview – knowing his wise words on the page could live on afterwards’ Emma Barnett*****READER REVIEWS’Simon’s cheerful voice comes through every page”An absolute gift of a book … This book has the potential to change your life”Stunning’It isn’t quite ‘Don’t buy any green bananas’. But it’s close to ‘Don’t start any long books’.

In his mid-40s, Simon Boas was diagnosed with incurable cancer – it had been caught too late, and spread around his body. But he was determined to die as he had learned to live – optimistically, thinking the best of people, and prioritising what really matters in life.

In A Beginner’s Guide to Dying Simon considers and collates the things that have given him such a great sense of peace and contentment, and why dying at 46 really isn’t so bad. And for that reason it’s also only partly about ‘dying’. It is mostly a hymn to the joy and preciousness of life, and why giving death a place can help all of us make even more of it.