From the Book - First U.S. edition.
Introduction: After paradise
The voice in the whirlwind : The book of Job and The book of Psalms
Waiting for the Messiah : Paul's Epistles
Cicero's tears : letters on the death of his daughter
Facing the barbarians : Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
The consolations of philosophy : Boethius and Dante
The painting of time : El Greco's The burial of the Count of Orgaz
The body's wisdom : Michel de Montaigne's last essays
The unsent letter : David Hume's my own life
The consolations of history : Condorcet's a sketch for a historical picture of the progress of the human mind
The heart of heartless conditions : Karl Marx and The communist manifesto
War and consolation : Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address
Songs on the death of children : Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder
The calling : Max Weber and the Protestant ethic
The consolations of witness : Anna Akhmatova, Primo Levi, and Miklós Radnóti
To live outside grace : Albert Camus's The plague
Living in truth : Václav Havel's Letters to Olga
The good death : Cicely Saunders and the hospice.
