The Bottom Drawer Book

Set out as a workbook, the Bottom Drawer Book is a practical guide with brightly coloured illustrations and humourous text to encourage us to examine and plan for a time when we can't speak up for ourselves.

Never dark or confronting, this book is about putting in order our plans for our funeral arrangements and the time around our passing so that our loved ones can make decisions with us and not for us during a very important and emotional time.

Treat it as a work in progress. Add ideas over time. Change your thoughts. Consider things you never even thought of because if you don't someone will have to, and its your life after all.

Lisa Herbert is an author, freelance journalist, cemetery wanderer, death awareness advocate, charity worker, blogger and public speaker. A radio journalist for 17 years, Lisa has also worked as a TV reporter and producer.

Her interest in western society’s perception of death and dying was sparked as a teen after reading the books of renowned psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The works, inspired by Dr Kübler-Ross’ work with terminally ill patients, were groundbreaking at the time. Never before had the emotional needs of the dying been given attention by the medical profession.

More than fifty years on and many people are still reluctant to talk about the inevitable. However, while researching The Bottom Drawer Book, Lisa found that once the discussion began, people opened up and gave their mortality some measured thought. All they needed was someone to initiate the discussion. And that’s where The Bottom Drawer Book comes in. Its aim is to start the conversation.