Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (Psychology Revivals)

Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (Psychology Revivals)
Author: John Sym
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 131791127X

This book, first published in 1637, was the first full-length treatise on suicide published in English. Originally published in 1988 as part of the Tavistock Classics in the History of Psychiatry series, the introduction by Michael MacDonald places the book in the context of attitudes to suicide in its day, as well as showing some of the ways that this theological book is also a study of the psychology and sociology of suicide. He discusses the evolution of the law of suicide and analyses the religious beliefs held about it at the time, before going on to look at John Sym himself and the structure of his book.

Self's Murder

Self's Murder
Author: Bernhard Schlink
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2009-08-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307456684

Gerhard Self, the seventy-something, sambuca-drinking, Sweet-Afton smoking sleuth returns in a riveting new mystery about money-laundering, murder, and mafiosi.Despite his failing health and his girlfriend's pleading, Gerhard Self won't stop doing what he does best—investigating. And his most recent case is one of the most intriguing of his career. Herr Welker desperately wants to write a history of his bank, but to do so he needs Self to track down a mysterious silent partner. Self takes the job, but is soon accosted by a man who frantically hands him a suitcase full of cash and speeds off in a car, only to crash into a tree, dying instantly. Perplexed, and convinced there is more to the case than he is being told, Self follows the money. Soon he finds himself traveling to eastern Germany, where he encounters some of the most unsavory villains he has met yet.

Suicide in the Middle Ages: Volume 2: The Curse on Self-Murder

Suicide in the Middle Ages: Volume 2: The Curse on Self-Murder
Author: Alexander Murray
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 662
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191613991

A group of men dig a tunnel under the threshold of a house. Then they go and fetch a heavy, sagging object from inside the house, pull it out through the tunnel, and put it on a cow-hide to be dragged off and thrown into the offal-pit. Why should the corpse of a suicide – for that is what it is– have earned this unusual treatment? In The Curse on Self-Murder, the second volume of his three-part Suicide in the Middle Ages, Alexander Murray explores the origin of the condemnation of suicide, in a quest which leads along the most unexpected byways of medieval theology, law, mythology, and folklore –and, indeed, in some instances beyond them. At an epoch when there might be plenty of ostensible reasons for not wanting to live, the ways used to block the suicidal escape route give a unique perspective on medieval religion.

Suicide in the Middle Ages: Volume 2: The Curse on Self-Murder

Suicide in the Middle Ages: Volume 2: The Curse on Self-Murder
Author: Alexander Murray
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 661
Release: 1998
Genre: History
ISBN: 019820731X

The second volume in a three-part series, The Curse of Self-Murder explores the origins of the condemnation of suicide and provides a unique perspective on medieval culture and religion.