THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: A Biography, by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton University Press, 2011, 175 pp., $19.95 (hardcover)

In 2005 a journalist telephoned the eminent scholar of Buddhism and Tibetan Studies, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., and asked him whether "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" was the most important work in Tibetan Buddhism.

"No," Lopez replied.

"Do all Tibetans own a copy?"