Books and Brief Bio

Encountering The Edge: What People Told Me Before They Died, published by Pen-L Publishing (April 2014). Free of religious agendas and pat answers, these are true quirky stories about my hospice patients and what they most cared about and believed in. Topics include how patients responded to my singing, and what some patients had to say about the afterlife. In the last chapter, I delve into the deeper reasons for choosing this “offbeat” line of work by imagining what it might be like for me to be on hospice and visit with my match, a chaplain. The book is endorsed by a reporter from The Huffington Post. My goal in writing the book was to provide a gentle and even humorous entree to a forbidding yet mesmerizing subject

You can get the soft cover and Kindle editions on Amazon or directly from the publisher at  http://www.pen-l.com/EncounteringTheEdge.html. Audio is now available as well through Amazon or audible.com:  http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/Encountering-the-Edge-What-People-Told-me-Before-They-Died-Audiobook/B011CHH2BE/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1451866663&sr=1-1 . Bulk rates for ten copies or more are available from the publisher. It is also available through Barnes and Noble both as a softcover and as a Nook book at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ Moreover, you can order it through your favorite  nearby bookstore. For more information you can email me at karenbookmankaplan@gmail.com

Nutshell Biography

Ordained in 1992, I am among the first 200 female rabbis worldwide. In 2007 I became a board certified chaplain and served hospices for 11 years including Princeton Hospice, and Center for Hope Hospice in Elizabeth, NJ.  Since 2020, I have made a major career change, serving as Chief Marketing Officer at my husband’s own company, True Contrarian Investments. There I use my interpersonal skills making clients feel paid attention to, which we all want at all stages of life.

In 2017, I released a new book, Curiosity Seekers, a collection of compassionate  science fiction stories. These gentle stories are interconnected, and feature an old-fashioned couple, Gomer and Muriel Ackerman, who live in the near future. In one story, their financial planner Virginia becomes one of the first people cured of dementia. In another, the Ackermans’ niece meets an alien species that must be stingy with words in order to survive.  The softcover and Kindle version of the book is available on Amazon:   http://amzn.to/2mjXpR0

You can reach me directly at karenbookmankaplan@gmail.com