Monday, January 29, 2018

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

From Here to Eternity book coverKnown for her web series, Ask a Mortician, Caitlin Doughty is a proponent of making funerals more natural and meaningful than the current impersonal, profit-driven model. In this, her second book, she explores funeral customs and death rituals of other cultures: visiting cemeteries, witnessing funerals, and attending celebrations of the dead the world over. She describes old-fashioned funeral pyres, cremation ceremonies involving chopsticks, and the reverent tending of mummified relatives. Many of these seemingly exotic rituals include close personal interactions with the deceased’s earthly remains; a stark contrast to the rather antiseptic practices promoted by the American funeral industry. Doughty laments that we have so distanced ourselves from death, that it is only viewed with fear and disgust, whereas other cultures continue to foster relationships with their loved ones, remembering them, honoring them, and including them in family life even after they have passed on.

If you like the readable nonfiction style of Mary Roach or have ever wondered why a burial can’t be a simpler, less expensive affair, this book will interest you. You may also wish to read Doughty’s first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, a memoir of her time working in a crematory.

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