I finished Death by Shelly Kagan. It was very readable, but I don’t think I got much out of it. I kept feeling like something interesting was around the corner, but it was predictable (though reasonable and thorough) thinking about ideas around death. The most interesting chapter was about what counts as the continuation of a living person — all the 1000-year old Ship of Theseus, cloning personalities kind of stuff.
The weakness in the book is around the assertion that it’s better to exist (assuming you have a life that’s more good than it is bad) than to not exist. I think he even says the two situations are not comparable but then says it’s better to exist.
Even though I wasn’t blown away, it was nice to spend a little time thinking about this kind of thing in a structured way.