Catalog Search Results
Author
Pub. Date
2022.
Formats
Description
"A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people-morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners-who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we're so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look? Fueled by...
Author
Publisher
Chalice Press, an imprint of Christian Board of Publication
Pub. Date
[2019]
Description
"In the year she served as a chaplain in a hospital "death ward," Dana Trent accompanied more than 200 people--and their families--on their passage from life to death. Dessert First gathers those stories and lessons, as well as others from her journey with her dying mom, to illuminate the complexity of death and grief, and how we all might better prepare for a "good death." Dessert First is a deeply personal, touching, and sometimes humorous look...
Author
Publisher
Sounds True
Pub. Date
2022.
Description
"A fascinating and oft-surprising exploration of the history and meaning of funeral rituals Ceremonies for honoring the departed are crucial parts of our lives, but few people know where our traditional practices come from--and what they reveal about our history, culture, and beliefs about death. In Last Rites, author Todd Harra takes you on a fascinating exploration of American customs around death, burial, and remembrance."
Author
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
©2017
Description
Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks...
Author
Publisher
The Countryman Press, a division of W. W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
[2020]
Description
"Everything you ever wanted to know about funeral etiquette but were afraid to ask. When is attending a funeral or memorial service 'a must,' and when is it optional? Can a eulogy be funny? Can I scatter my brother's ashes in the backyard? Should I place a death notice or an obituary? What's the difference? These are all questions that Florence Isaacs has been asked as a blogger for Legacy.com, a role that earned her the nickname of the 'Dear Abby...
Author
Publisher
Sterling Children's Books
Pub. Date
[2019]
Description
"When your something wonderful becomes something dead, having a backyard funeral helps when everything feels awful and the words don't come."--Back cover.
A picture book that endeavors to help children in their understanding and acceptance of the death of a pet, providing step-by-step advice for burying, reminiscing, and grieving.
Author
Publisher
North Atlantic Books
Pub. Date
[2019]
Description
"For all those seeking to reclaim their innate and legal right to care for their own dead, create home funeral vigils, and choose greener after-death care options that are less toxic and more sustainable for the earth. More natural after-death care options are transforming the paradigm of the existing funeral industry, helping families and communities recover their instinctive capacity to care for a loved one after death and do so in creative, nourishing,...
Author
Publisher
Unbound
Pub. Date
2021.
Description
By the time Erica Buist’s father-in-law Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, his book resting on his chest, he had been dead for over a week. She searched for answers (the artery-clogging cheeses in his fridge?) and tried to reason with herself (does daughter-in-law even feature in the grief hierarchy?) and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies. While her husband maintained a semblance of grace and poise,...
Author
Publisher
Chelsea Green Publishing
Pub. Date
[2023]
Description
"When he became an undertaker, Rupert Callender undertook to deal with the dead for the sake of the living. What Remains? is the brilliant, unforgettable story of the life and work of the world's first punk undertaker-but it is also a book about ordinary, everyday humanity and our capacity to face death with courage and compassion. To say goodbye to the people we love in our own way. In becoming the world's first "punk undertaker" and establishing...
Author
Publisher
Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House
Pub. Date
[2022]
Description
"Writing an ethical will, a document that includes stories and reflections about your past, is an ancient tradition. It can include joy and regrets, and ultimately becomes both a way to remember a loved one who is gone and a primer on how to live a better, happier life. Beloved Rabbi Steve Leder has helped thousands of people to write their own ethical wills, and in this intimate book helps us write our own."--
Author
Publisher
Westminster John Knox Press
Pub. Date
[2013]
Description
Two of the most authoritative voices on the funeral industry come together here in one volume to discuss the current state of the funeral. Through their different lenses -- one as a preacher and one as a funeral director -- Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing "the good funeral," including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between...
Author
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pub. Date
c2011
Description
Thoughtful, amusing, and provocative, Making an Exit will transform the way you look at life's last passage. Because, as Murray discovers, death is, for many, not an ending but the start of something new.
Author and journalist Sarah Murray never gave much thought to what might ultimately happen to her remains-that was, until her father died. While he'd always insisted that the "organic matter" left after a person takes their last breath had no significance,...
Author
Series
Publisher
Nosy Crow Inc
Pub. Date
2025.
Description
From ancient Egyptian mummies and European bog bodies to the plaster citizens of Pompeii, painted people of the Steppe, and Japanese self-mummifying monks, this book reveals what scientists and experts have uncovered about our ancestors' lives from the bodies they left behind. Find out what people of the past ate, wore, believed in, and much more in this unique and intricately illustrated book.
Author
Publisher
The University of Georgia Press
Pub. Date
[2014]
Description
What happens after someone dies depends on our personal stories and on where those stories fall in a larger tale--that of death in America. It's a powerful tale that we usually keep hidden from our everyday lives until we have to face it. American Afterlife by Kate Sweeney reveals this world through a collective portrait of Americans past and present who find themselves personally involved with death: a klatch of obit writers in the desert, a funeral...
Series
Studies on China volume 8
Publisher
University of California Press
Pub. Date
c1988
Description
During the late imperial era (1500-1911), China, though divided by ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences at least as great as those prevailing in Europe, enjoyed a remarkable solidarity. What held Chinese society together for so many centuries? Some scholars have pointed to the institutional control over the written word as instrumental in promoting cultural homogenization; others, the manipulation of the performing arts. This volume, comprised...
Author
Publisher
Sterling Pub. Co
Pub. Date
c1990
Description
While doing research for a family tree, author Lou Schafer surveyed thousands of headstones across the United States and overseas and amassed a unique collection of, often unintentionally, humorous epitaphs. Along with gravestone inscriptions, this book also includes historical information to give the epitaphs more context. Each chapter highlights traditional death customs, eccentric illustrations as well as numerous bizarre, vengeful, rude and funny...
Author
Publisher
Miramax Books
Pub. Date
c2005
Description
A hilarious guide to the intricate rituals, customs, and etiquette surrounding death in the South-and a practical collection of recipes for the final send-off.
As author Gayden Metcalfe asserts, people in the Delta have a strong sense of community, and being dead is no impediment to belonging to it. Down south, they don't forget you when you've up and died-they may even like you better and visit you more often! But just as there is an appropriate...