Top ten books about the afterlife

Tim Thornton is the author of the novels The Alternative Hero, Death of An Unsigned Band, and Felix Romsey's Afterparty. He also plays drums for the band Fink. Among his ten top books about the afterlife, as shared at the Guardian:

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002)

The felt-pen drawing by Susie Salmon’s kid brother inadvertently reveals her new celestial whereabouts: “A thick blue line separated the air and the ground… I became convinced that the line was a real place… where heaven’s horizon met Earth’s.” Susie, recently murdered, watches her family, friends and neighbours from this ethereal viewing platform, but with frustratingly inconsistent ability to influence anything. Sebold handles her novel’s central irony – that the power of Susie’s desire to live is what eventually enables her to enjoy her death – with delicacy and passion.

Read about the other books on the list.

The Lovely Bones is among Jeff Somers's top eight speculative works with dead narrators, Nadiya Hussain's six best books, Judith Claire Mitchell's ten best (unconventional) ghosts, Laura McHugh's ten favorite books about serial killers, and Tamzin Outhwaite's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue