The devotional also includes a memento mori examen or review of the day, a daily moment of intercessory prayer, and daily reflections on death from the tradition, including the Church Fathers and many of the saints.

Spark was introduced on the flap text as 'a brilliant heiress of Waugh', and Memento Mori as an 'entertaining reflection on death' and as 'a fierce and subtle critique of a decaying world, based on appearance and hypocrisy, which simultaneously support and pose a major threat to the characters'.

"Martin Luther prominently opposed this reading at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, anticipating modern readings." If Ecclesiastes tries out a skeptical worldview, "the memento mori theme readily becomes a kind of realistic resignation before an inscrutable and almost despotic deity" said Treier, who subscribes to a more positive, "theologically friendly" reading of the text, in the context that "our labor in the Lord is not in vain."

Much has been written about memento mori in the arts.

Memento mori !" If I recall my schoolboy Latin correctly, this translates roughly as: "Look behind you!

Pam Plumb, from Darlington, was inspired to write her story, Memento Mori , which follows the investigation of a child abduction, after attending Crime Story 2014, the crime writing festival which pooled the knowledge of criminologists, forensic scientists and other experts to inform the facts behind crime fiction.

Find memento mori paperweights to help us celebrate life by contemplating death" Philosopher Alain de Botton takes a cerebral view of Christmas presents "Sometimes the workings of British law would do justice to a Benny Hill script" Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe "People go out in the evening now wearing baggy cargo shorts or jeans with so many holes and rips in them that they look as if they have been pulled out of a bin" Actress Dame Joan Collins deplores the trend for sloppy dress

Lares holds a BA in Economics from Stanford University and is a partner in Memento Mori winery.

This elegantly composed memento mori leaves us with a deep sense of sadness and anger as we watch the singer totter towards oblivion.