Hardback, Paperback and eBook. Everything you want to know. A fun read. Buy some death!
The Book of DEATH eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Book of DEATH – Paperback, Hardback, eBook and audio!
I started to write this book twenty odd years ago. I’d reached that age when I started to get a whiff of mortality. I thought that as a writer I’d chronicle my own feelings, thoughts and symptoms regarding my own death. I called it ‘The Death Diaries’. The years went on and no tangible symptoms materialised for me to write about – but I did have a lot of thoughts, feelings and research regarding death. I changed the emphasis. Instead of a diary regarding my own death I collected together my research, thoughts and feelings into a different book. I called it ‘The Book of DEATH’.
This is it.
It’s finally out in Hardback, Paperback and eBook. Everything you want to know about death!
The Book of DEATH: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Ophe Opher, Goodwin, Opher: 9798294533908: Books
An atheist explores death from all angles.
Originally titled ‘The Death Diaries’ (20 years in the writing) – but that never happened (not yet!)
Humour deployed, science explained, disbelief ladled with syrup, rituals ceremoniously elaborated on, myths ridiculed, personal condition revealed, psychology delved into, cultures touched on, views expressed, taboos bulldozed, honesty put to the forefront, fears probed and mysteries demystified.
My forthright views delivered with openness and maximum offense!
Everything you might want to know or think about death.
Death! You’ve got to love it!
Now get on with life!
Poetry – The Alphabet of Life
The Alphabet of Life
Each letter, each word,
Each sentence, paragraph and chapter
Is precious.
Any loss leaves a hole
In the telling of our tale.
We become as impoverished
As empty
As the blank pages
We create.
What profiteth a man
When he has gained
The whole sterile globe
But lost
More than he will ever know?
Opher 25.6.2018
The Alphabet of Life
I was thinking about the incredible DNA molecule that spells out the alphabet of life. Back in the beginning that first amazing molecule started the ball rolling. We have all descended from that. We are all related. Every single cell of life is wondrous, precious and miraculous.
Yet we are destroying life at an increasing rate, driving species after unique species into extinction. Yet every single species is precious.
We should certainly respect it more!!
Conversations with the dead
Conversations with the dead
Today I was looking at my rows of shelves
Where I still have conversations with the dead.
Yesterday I was sharing a joke with Vonnegut and laughing silly,
Having sex in the woodshed with Lawrence,
Getting high with Kerouac in a Mexican Brothel
And shooting at fascists with Hemingway.
I speak to them through the years
And they communicate with me.
Their immortality speaks volumes.
Their words never die.
Their thoughts and dreams are precious.
Today I was looking at the rows of lives that line my mind and rooms,
That shared their imaginations with me,
Who advise me still, inspire and enthrall.
My life would be so much the paler without their words in my head.
I learn so much, am so moved, by my conversations with the dead.
Opher 27.4.2018
A stacked bookshelf is a sign of intelligent life. I do not know where I’d be without reading. Certainly my life would be impoverished.
That bookshelf contains a million lives, millions of experiences, thoughts, people and friends. I find out how they think and feel and share a segment of their lives and they enrich mine.
There is something archaically wonderful about books. Telling stories is one of the oldest traditions of human beings. It is hardwired into our hearts. Those authors may be no longer with us but their genius still rings true. They converse with us from the grave. Their spirit will always live.
Anecdote – The johnny hunt
The johnny hunt
We were only nine years old. We didn’t know the first thing about sex. There wasn’t any internet back then where we could have viewed the whole thing in graphic detail and probably gained an equally confusing and disturbing picture. All we had were various dry definitions in the dictionary. But we certainly were interested. We had a whole repertoire of naughty words. Sex was very exciting.
What we knew we had gleaned from the older boys – so that had to be true!
Jeff, Dave and I used to discuss this exciting topic. Jeff and I had sisters so we knew a little bit more that Dave who only had a younger brother. We knew that boys had willies and girls didn’t. They had fannies. Fannies had a hole in them that babies came out of. We found that very hard to conceive. Even stranger was the idea that boys put their willies in girls fannies and that’s how babies were made.
We knew there had to be more to it than that. It was intriguing and hugely exciting.
We listened in on what the older boys were saying and pieced some more together. Boys squirted stuff out of their willies. That sounded absurd. Boys peed out of their willies. What was this stuff?
Then we found out that some of the older boys had gone on a Johnny hunt and found a number of Johnnies in the woods. This was a missing link. Johnnies were an essential part of this whole sex business. We listened in avidly to the conversations and understood a fraction of it. Of course you could not ask questions of the older boys. That would have shown that you didn’t know and you would have been ridiculed. No. We were boys of the world. We picked up the snippets and worked it out. If a boy and girl wanted to make a baby they had to use a Johnny. The boy would strap this device over his penis and it would enable him to squirt juice. The boys talked a lot about this juice. They had lots of jokes about squirting it that we did not fully understand, though it was extremely rude. The older boys had found Johnnies in the woods. We wanted to find some.
We set off on an expedition. We only had a vague idea what we were looking for. It had to be a tube that the boy put over his willie and straps to hold it on. We’d know when we found one.
Well we spent all day looking where the courting couples went. We knew all of the spots. One of the older boys had bragged about sneaking up and watching a couple actually at it.
Unfortunately we did not find anything that matched the description. There were no tubular objects with straps to be found anywhere in the woods.
Our Johnny hunt was a complete failure. Sex had still to be discovered.
If you are enjoying these little tales from a life and would like to read more then you can purchase them all in my two books of anecdotes.
They are available on Amazon in both paperback and on kindle.
Anecdotes – paperback just £6.95 Kindle – just £1.99 or free on Kindle Unlimited
More Anecdotes – paperback just £7.29 Kindle – just £2.12 or free on Kindle Unlimited
My other books are also available. There is some unique to suit most tastes if you like something thought provoking and alternative.
Good News – More Anecdotes, Essays, Beliefs and flotsam is unsuppressed!!!
My new book cover – More Anecdotes, Essay, Beliefs and Flotsam – What do you think?
This is the cover for my latest book.
The book is a collection of anecdotes and other writing. It is a book to dip into. It is also a companion book to my first book of anecdotes.
So I thought I would take the same artwork that I had used on the first book and alter the colour.
I think it works and complements the first book. What do you think?
I’m in these books.
Trying for a record – publishing two books on one day!
It’s a bit of a race against time.
I have been working on both of these books simultaneously.
I have finally completed the third edit on both and managed to get both of them up to publishing standard.
The question is whether they can go through their review and processing in time.
We’ll see.
In the meantime perhaps you would like to take possession of a unique artifact of the 21st Century – a luscious Opher Book – unique in every way. A treasure to adorn your coffee table. A work of art in its own right!
These are a couple of other of my poetry books.
If you enjoy my poems or anecdotes why not purchase a paperback of anecdotes for £7.25 or a kindle version for free.
Or a book of poetry and comment:
Rhyme and Reason – just £3.98 for the paperback or free on Kindle
My other books are here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1457515636&sr=1-2-ent
Thank you and please leave a review.
Anecdote – Reporting on my death
Reporting on my death
My death is not real.
I do not know when, how or what form it will take.
I have no beliefs of an after-life. That seems too human a concept to me. My death will be the end of my consciousness. It will be similar to going to sleep. I will simply not wake.
My mind has no concept of the oblivion during sleep when my consciousness no longer operates. It is a little death. There is no sadness and grief in that state for the person concerned. There is only nothingness. The time evaporates. It is empty. The sadness of death only comes with contemplation. We torment ourselves needlessly. The sadness is in the loss of this peephole into the universe. For the dead there is no perception, no sense of loss, no suffering. They simply no longer exist.
Instead of dwelling on death we should be celebrating the wonder of our lives. For this flash of time we have a peephole into a wondrous universe. It is brief, measured in seconds, and it is miraculous. We should maximise that the experience. It will not come again.
I have enjoyed it greatly. I have filled it with as much as I could pack in.
That is a life worth living.
I know I have been lucky. I have loved and been loved. I have read, written, travelled and made friends. I have tasted the best and tested the boundaries.
I shall have few regrets.
My death will be a sadness. Of that I am sure. It will be a sadness to me that I can no longer extend my vocabulary of delights, I can no longer share with the people I love and my peephole will close. It will be a sadness for people who love me.
But no regrets. We have shared and loved enough.
My funeral must be a celebration. I am writing this on a boat travelling to South America. The adventure continues. That is what must be acknowledged. If my life had been empty and mundane that might be a different matter. But it has been full. I am replete. I have already lived a hundred lives and loved as much. What more could any man ask?
Yet still there are decisions.
I vacillate between leaving my body to medical science as my brave mother did, or being buried in a wicker basket so that my flesh may return to the cycle of life. No lead lined coffin for me. I want the living things to have their fill. I have loved my biology.
I have chosen my music well – Little Richard – Rip it Up and Roy Harper – When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease are the two essentials. They’ll be lots of photos of me and I’ll write a piece myself. It’ll be good to talk from beyond the grave. I might even record something. No doubt a few other people might want to say things about me.
I need to plan it a bit more thoroughly.
Strange and ironic– that I now, planning a funeral, I need to flesh out the bones.
The thought of my funeral makes me smile.
If you enjoy my poems or anecdotes why not purchase a paperback of anecdotes for £7.25 or a kindle version for free.
Or a book of poetry and comment:
Rhyme and Reason – just £3.98 for the paperback or free on Kindle
My other books are here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1457515636&sr=1-2-ent
Thank you and please leave a review.