A Beginner's Guide to Dying: 'Has anyone ever written a more inspirational paean to the joy of life?' Daily Mail

Simon Boas

Sep 2024 · Swift Press Audio · Narrated by Simon Boas

About this audiobook

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.

About the author

Simon Boas was born in 1977 and spent his childhood in London and Winchester. He got the bug for Overseas Aid after delivering his first aid convoy to Bosnia (at 16) in 1993, and went on to spend his career working for development charities and the UN. He worked in Africa for many years, and lived in Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, Nepal, India, and the Palestinian Territories, including three years running a UN office in the Gaza Strip. He spent his last eight years living in Jersey, running the Island's Overseas Aid agency, accompanied by his beloved wife Aurelie and his scruffy French sheepdog, Pippin.

At 46 he was diagnosed with advanced throat cancer and had a year of living dyingly, during which he found himself as happy as he'd ever been. He wrote about this for his local paper, which went viral, and this encouraged him to try to expand on why hopping the twig at 46 really isn't so bad. A Beginner's Guide to Dying is the result.