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Dearly Departed reads

Dearly Departed reads

Discover Dearly Departed, an exhibition exploring the social, cultural, spiritual, historical and political forces that have shaped Queenslanders’ experiences and attitudes toward death and dying.

The Stories and Ideas team has put together a list of books about death and loss, love and grief, including beloved author Cory Taylor's memoir, Dying, now a stage play adapted by Benjamin Law, plus the 20th anniversary edition of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

Read on for award-winning memoirs, children's titles, and adult fiction about living, dying, and remembering. And come visit State Library this summer where Dearly Departed is giving life in the slq Gallery from 14 March to 23 August 2026.

Dearly Departed exhibition reads

The cover of Dying: a memoir by Cory Taylor and Benjamin Law showing a woman in a blue jumper and jeans

Dying: A Memoir
adaptation by Benjamin Law
Currency Press

Cover of Grace and Mr Milligan by Caz Goodwin and Pip Kruger_the cover is a drawing of an old man, a little girl, and a goat on a beach

Grace and Mr Milligan
by Caz Goodwin
illustrated by Pip Kruger
Marshall Cavendish

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks – the cover shows a photograph of stacks of boulders with shadows across them

Memorial Days
by Geraldine Brooks
Hachette Australia

Cover of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – cover is blue and shows a cassette tape in shadow

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Allen and Unwin

Cover of Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko showing a nest of sticks and barbed wire against a black background

Mullumbimby
by Melissa Lucashenko
UQP

The cover of The Buried Life by Andrea Goldsmith showing the silhouette of a person and ocean waves

The Buried Life
by Andrea Goldsmith
Transit Lounge

In the spirit of Dearly Departed

Becoming death literate: grief, death, and end-of-life care in Queensland

Metro Arts' inaugural Deathfest was a weekend-long cultural event about death, dying, and bereavement..

several figures dressed in protective clothing

Black Death in Queensland

Learn more about Queensland's "patient zero" in the bubonic plague outbreak at the turn of the century.

John Mye, son of George and Jennifer Mye and uncle of Daisy Mye.

Mye family tombstone opening

A digital story of the ceremony held on Erub Island on 20 December 2019, to mark the tombstone opening of Jacob George Mye MBE OAM.

Watch digital story