The books listed below are available online through Barnes and Noble and Amazon, or they can be ordered at most local book stores. 

CJ's List:

Belanger, Jeff. Communicating with the Dead. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press New Page Books, 2005. Explores various methods people use to communicate with the other side by interviewing experts in each field of interest. Well-written and detailed, this book is a good overview of the many ways people approach after-death communication.


DuBois, Allison. We Are Their Heaven: Why the Dead Never Leave Us. New York: Fireside Books Simon and Schuster, 2006.

From the woman who inspired the NBC TV show Medium. Those who have crossed over continue to provide us with love, guidance, comfort and support, but the dead have a language of their own. The author teaches us how to recognize, read and interpret signs from our loved ones on the other side. The book is about life, death and the unbreakable connection of love. I found it comforting and believable. I most liked the author's humility about her psychic gifts.


Edward, John. One Last Time: A Psychic Medium Speaks to Those We Have Loved and Lost. Berkley Trade, 1999.

From the publisher: It's easy to distrust those who claim to communicate with the dead, to dismiss them as charlatans who take advantage of the bereaved. Psychic medium Edward himself urges readers to "be skeptical, though not cynical." But it is not so easy to reject Edward's compelling tale of gradually accepting his psychic abilities and acting as a messenger between spirits who have passed over to "the Other Side" and their loved ones left behind.

With a college degree in public health and administration, and "rising within the ranks" of a large hospital, he finally gave in to the "constant yanking feeling" he had experienced since he was a boy. In several poignant stories of connecting people with their deceased family members, Edward tries "to demystify spirit communication" by explaining exactly what he sees, hears and feels during a "reading."

The spirits, he says, speak to him in voices, sounds, images, sensations, smells, tastes and feelings, mostly in symbolic form. Usually, beyond identifying the senders in verifiable ways, the messages are simply that those who have passed on are all right and that "they're still with us."

The author is a combination of James Van Praagh (Talking to Heaven) tempered with the down-to-earth appeal of Caroline Myss. Edward offers an intriguing collection of anecdotes that may not convince the cynical but that can both comfort and fascinate the merely skeptical.

Also by John Edward:

Crossing Over. Jodere Group, 2001.

From the publisher: In Crossing Over—the book—John brings his readers with him on the extraordinary journey that has been his life since his New York Times bestseller One Last Time was published in 1998.

In the style of his TV show and personal appearances—poignant, funny, and remarkably candid—John deals head-on with the controversial issues he has confronted on his voyage as a psychic medium. Readers might be surprised to learn that it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. On the way to becoming an internationally celebrated medium, John has had to learn his own lessons about the meaning of his work and about the motivations of some of the people he has met on his path.


Afterlife: Answers from the Other Side. Princess Press, 2003.

From the publisher: In his fourth book, John Edward demonstrates once again that grief, healing, and hope are eternally intertwined and universal. John answers your most often-asked questions about how the mediumship process works on the “other side,” while taking you on the inside of his own personal life as a husband and new father. He shares what he’s learned through his own recent, personal losses and demonstrates that you’re never too late to forgive—and never too far away to love.


Van Praagh, James. Healing Grief: Reclaiming Life After Any Loss. New York: New American Library, 2000.

James Van Praagh is a well-known medium and author of the best-selling book Talking to Heaven. Here he shares spiritual messages from deceased loved ones, who shed new light on grief and loss. The stories, along with his personal experiences of grief, help us view loss as part of our soul's evolving spiritual journey--one that will move us beyond the devastating sorrow of grief to a life of renewed purpose.

Besides the death of loved ones, the author looks at all types of loss, including divorce, aging, losing a home or job, catastrophic illness, prenatal death, pet loss and mental illness. There is a question and answer section and a chapter on how to heal after any loss with practical advice, activities and meditations. The writing is heartfelt, wise and compassionate.

I have one criticism of Mr. Van Praagh's writing: He can be too in love with his own abilities at times and is very much a celebrity name-dropper. Still, his writing comforts me and isn't that the greatest gift I can receive from anyone who writes about grief?


One final thought about finding books: Use any large online bookstore as a research tool. Type in key words such as afterlife, medium, spirits, after-death communication or an author's name and see what turns up. Read descriptions and reviews. Search libraries. After-death communication is usually found in the paranormal or "New Age" section. Trust that you will find what you need.