About the Book and Author

Now at the Patheos Book Club
How to Survive Life (and Death)
A Guide for Happiness in This World and Beyond
By Robert Kopecky

About the Book

When you nearly die three times, you learn a thing or two about how to live...

An Emmy-nominated art director for television, Robert Kopecky never dreamed he'd end up writing a book about how to survive life and death. But what else could he do? Over the years, Kopecky had not one, but three, near-death experiences. He discovered exactly what lives on the other side of our fears about dying—and living. And he had some stories he knew we'd want to hear. Even some very funny ones.

Read this book and you'll find yourself uncoiling, relaxing your shoulders, taking deeper breaths. You may even feel like you're floating as you begin to shed the weight of a lifetime of social and existential anxiety. You'll discover what Kopecky believes are the three keys to living more life:

1. Radical Kindness
2. Radical Forgiveness
3. Radical Surrender

And you'll find the calm determination to live your life accordingly.

About the Author

Born and raised on the outskirts of San Diego, California, Robert Kopecky survived a traumatic childhood, traveled extensively as a young man, and lived a variety of lives as a ski bum, a factory welder, a monumental sculpture fabricator, an underground cartoonist; and finally as an award-winning illustrator, art director, and animation designer.

His journeys—from the remote South Pacific to the capitals of Europe to the deserts of Arizona and the canyons of New York City—were punctuated by three dramatic "Near Death Experiences." This led him to years of study and meditation, and the transpersonal realization of what this Life actually may be that inspired he to start joyfully passing along the lessons he'd learned, obviously the hard way. He and his wife, Sue Pike "The Animal Talker," divide their time between the Upper Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn, New York.

Kopecky has numerous awards as an illustrator. Most recently, he was placed in Emmy consideration for the design of the Cartoon Network series "Sheep in the Big City;" served as Art Director and Principal Designer for PBS Kids' Emmy-award winning series "WordWorld;" and received Emmy consideration and a 2013 South By Southwest nomination for the title design of Showtimes series, "Weeds."

Visit his blog Art, Faith and the Koko Lion at robertkopecky.blogspot.com.