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Author
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
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...
Description
The patron saint celebration in an indigenous community is the setting where a photographer loses his shadow. In a spiritual exchange during a traditional funeral, he will also lose the convictions that keep him tied to his world. In order to recover, he will have to travel an initiatory path along with the inhabitants of the community, sharing a different way of approaching the environment. However, only when he accepts the loss of his shadow will...
Author
Description
This book explores lessons learned about life, death, love and loss. It is a practical guide to rethinking death. It discusses life and living, as much as death and dying. It's a reflection on the beauties, blessings and tragedies of life, the exquisite agony and ecstasy of being alive, and the fragility of everything we hold dear. It's as simple and as complicated as that.
Author
Description
"How do cultures around the world grieve their loved ones? From Tibetan sky burials and Māori mourning customs to Swedish death cleaning, Irish wakes and Buddhism's bardos, this enthralling book reveals the different ways in which people approach life's one certainty: death. Through the four themes of celebrating, commemorating, mourning and offering, we illuminate more than 35 life-affirming traditions. Along the way, we'll highlight places and...
12) Annie's Point
Description
A recently widowed grandmother is determined to grant her husband's last wish, that she set his ashes free over the idyllic bluff they called Annie's Point. When her son Richard refuses to let his mother make the two thousand-mile trip, she takes off anyway with her free-spirited granddaughter in tow.
13) Do fish sleep?
Author
Description
Ten-year-old Jette wrestles with the death of her younger brother, Emil, at age six, recalling special times they had together, his long-term illness, and his funeral, as well as her parents' grief.
14) The funeral
Author
Description
"Norma and her parents are going to her great-uncle Frank's funeral, and Norma is more excited than sad. She is looking forward to playing with her favorite cousin, Ray, but when she arrives at the church, she is confronted with rituals and ideas that have never occurred to her before. While not all questions can be answered, when the day is over Norma is certain of one thing: Uncle Frank would have enjoyed his funeral. This sensitive and life-affirming...
15) Stone maidens
Author
Description
A serial killer is strangling young women and dumping their lifeless bodies in the steep forested ravines of southern Indiana. With each corpse he leaves a calling card: a stone figurine wedged deep inside the victim's throat. FBI forensic anthropologist Christine Prusik saw such figurines placed inside the bodies of the dead years ago when researching in Papua New Guinea. Is someone trying to send Christine a message?
Author
Description
"Through countless editions and across centuries, the Tibetan Book of the Dead has drawn readers intrigued by the Tibetan Buddhist view of the end of life. In a world that often ignores death or hides it from view, Tibetan Buddhists acknowledge it as the last of a countless series of endings in this lifetime. And after each ending comes a new beginning. The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Beginners draws on this timeless wisdom to help readers today...
Author
Description
"The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters--for...
Author
Description
Samskara is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of modern world literature, a book to set beside Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart and Tayeb Salih s Season of Migration to the North. Taking its name from a Sanskrit word that means rite of passage but also moment of recognition, it begins when Naranappa, an inhabitant of a small south Indian town and a renegade Brahmin who has scandalously flouted the rules of caste and purity for years, eating meat,...
Author
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...
20) Sordid lives
Description
A Texas sized, twisted white-trash tale that involves the sordid details about a southern dysfunction family who have been brought together for the funeral of "Grandma Peggy". She dies after tripping over her lover's wooden legs
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