There are many funeral planning guides to help you deal with a death and organise a good goodbye.

Having to order a book doesn’t help if you’re up against it for time – that’s why we have so much information on this website, but if you have time to think ahead – and let’s face it, most of us do –  it’s always good to prepare for the inevitable.

For excellent, practical, imaginative and knowledgable background on funerals with rich information and tips, we think these 3 are the best funeral planning guides:

• Good Funeral Guide by Charles Cowling. An excellent ‘consumer guide’ to everything you might want to know about death and dying and how to take charge organising a funeral with recommendations of good funeral directors.
• Natural Death Centre Handbook produced by the Natural Death Centre. Help, support, advice and guidance to help plan a funeral – either for yourself or for someone else.
• Dead Good Funerals – Sue Gill + John Fox. Sue and John are the dynamic duo once behind arts activists Welfare International. They’ve designed many creative ceremonies and bring craft and art into ritual. Sue along with Gilly Adams runs rites of passage training too so you can get tips for DIY ceremonies. Check our events section to see if there’s training coming up.

Here are a couple of great books available from them to help with planning a ceremony, life celebration or send off:

Dead Good Funerals Book by Sue Gill and John Fox
Eyes on Stalks by John Fox

See their recommended reading list below that will act as a useful funeral planning guide.

Engineers of the Imagination by Tony Coult and Baz Kershaw
Funerals without God by Jane Wynne Willson
It’s your funeral by Emma George
We Need To Talk About The Funeral by Morrell and Simonn Smith
Time To Go by Jean Francis
Ceremonies For Life by Michael Jordan
From Beginning To End by Robert Fulgham
Sacred Celebrations by Glennie Kindred
Crossroads by Louise Carus Mahdi, Nancy Geyer Christopher, Michael Meade