A Matter of Death: A Booklist to Help You Accept The End

We're all going to die. I'm not trying to bum you out. And I also know that somewhere, deep down, you are perfectly aware of the fact that none of us will be here forever. Death is a tough topic - it's scary to think about dying, and it's not any less scary to think about losing someone you love. So we have a tendency to not talk about "the end" and all the things that come with it: funerals, gravestones, the nail-biting decision of whether to adorn your loved one's casket with orchids or peonies. But not you, who picked up this book and thought, Give me some of that sweet funeral knowledge! You're not afraid. You're open-minded. And I dig that about you.
~Elizabeth Meyer, Good Mourning

Caitlin Doughty, author of  Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory, belongs to a group called The Order of The Good Death, an online community which includes death professionals (forensic artists, funeral directors, bio-degradable burial garment designers, the technical curator of the Pathology Museum), academics, and authors who are "working to redefine culture's relationship to mortality, grief, and death customers." The Order recently published a "Death Acceptance Reading List," which was first published by the Death Salon (a sister organization of The Order) website. The organizers at Death Salon "encourage conversations on mortality and mourning and their resonating effects on our culture and history...[and] hold public events and provide an online community...to increase discussion on this often-ignored subject, focusing more on ideas and the broader cultural impacts of death than one’s personal interactions with mortality." Clearly, the folks involved in both these organizations are serious about opening up discussions about death, yet Caitlin Doughty's book, for one, was one of the mostly wryly funny we'd ever read.

What better time than tomorrow, the Day of the Dead, to discuss these topics? According to the Visit México website, what we might think of as one-day event, Día de Muertos, here in the U.S. (and perhaps celebrated at the South Valley Dia De Los Muertos Marigold Parade and Celebration?) is actually a several day celebration:

• October 28: Families and friends honor those who died as a result of an accident, as well as those who had a sudden or violent death.
• October 29: Families remember those who drowned.
• October 30: People welcome and remember the lonely and forgotten souls who don’t have a family, such as orphans and criminals.
• October 31: People honor those who were never born, or who were not baptized.
• November 1: Families remember the children, also referred to as "little angels"
• November 2: Families welcome and remember all adults who have died.

Lesley Téllez, author of Eat Mexico: Recipes and Stories From Mexico City's Streets, Markets & Fondas, was interviewed by Travel & Leisure about the holiday and she said it's "a time of reflection. There’s definitely peace associated with the feelings of remembering people, remembering your family, and connecting with your current family members or your friends.” Perhaps we could all stand to get on board with the Order of the Good Death and those celebrating Day of the Dead, and try to learn to accept death in our own lives. We've cobbled together a booklist that may just help - mostly titles suggested by the Order, but a few from the library catalog that looked promising. In this year of celebrity deaths, how are you coping? How do you deal with the death of loved ones? If you'd like to let us know anything that has helped you in the comments, we'd love to hear about it.


Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral by Thomas G. Long 

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach 

The American Way of Death Revisited by Jessica Mitford 

Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death by Joshua Slocum and Lisa Carlson 

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker  

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom  

Talking About Death Won't Kill You by Virginia Morris  

Let's Talk About Death: Asking the Questions That Profoundly Change the Way We Live and Die by Steve Gordon and Irene Kacandes

Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris

The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead by David Shields

We Know How This Ends: Living While Dying by Bruce H. Kramer with Cathy Wurzer

The End-of-Life Handbook: A Compassionate Guide to Connecting With and Caring For a Dying Loved One by David B. Feldman, S. Andrew Lasher Jr.

The Death Class: A True Story About Life by Erika Hayasaki

Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses by Bess Lovejoy 

Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change An Adult's Life - For the Better by Jeanne Safer

On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross 

A Tour of Bones: Facing Fear and Looking for Life by Denise Inge

The End of Eve by Ariel Gore  

The Farewell Chronicles: How We Really Respond to Death by Anneli Rufus 

 

Lessons From the Dead: Funeral Practices and Forensic Science

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
~Mark Twain

We first heard of Caitlin Doughty through her webseries "Ask a Mortician", which answers questions about pet death, Viking funerals, traditional or natural burials, and more - everything about a mortician's trade you might be curious about, but afraid to ask, presented in a fashion that might just make you laugh out loud. Her new book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, is a New York Times Bestseller. As Doughty says, "Accepting your own mortality is like eating your vegetables: You may not want to do it, but it's good for you."*

We've written on abcreads before about mortality, but we thought now might be a good time to revisit the topic. For the mystery buffs, we've included a section about forensic science.

Funeral Practices

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Freezing People Is (Not) Easy: My Adventures in Cryonics by Bob Nelson, with Kenneth Bly and Sally Magaña, PhD

Forensic Science

Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek, MD and T.J. Mitchell

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell

Silent Witnesses: The Often Gruesome But Always Fascinating History of Forensic Science by Nigel McCrery

Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers, and Mysteries During the London Blitz by Molly Lefebure

The Poisoner's Handbook: Killer Chemistry [DVD]

Bosnia's Million Bones: Solving the World's Greatest Forensic Puzzle by Christian Jennings.

The Inheritor's Powder: A Tale of Arsenic, Murder, and the New Forensic Science by Sandra Hempel

Links

11 fascinating funeral traditions from around the globe [TEDBlog]

12 Strange Funerals and Funeral Traditions [Mental Floss]

What Do Forensic Scientists Do? [American Academy of Forensic Sciences]

Occupational Outlook Handbook: Forensic Science Technicians [U.S. Department of Labor]

The CSI Effect [The New Yorker]

A Cheerful Mortician Tackles the Lighter Side of Death [NPR]*

Obits & Tidbits

Grief, like Guilt, rushes in and talks apace.
~Stevie Smith


I am a big fan of shows like Six Feet Under & Bones. I like the macabre art of Edward Gorey.  I like to read obituaries. Someday I would like to visit Philadelphia's Mütter Museum, the museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, where exhibits include "the Chevalier Jackson Collection of Foreign Bodies Removed from the Food & Air Passages". I am drawn to the disturbing art of Francis Bacon.




I know I can't be the only one exhibiting this kind of  morbid curiosity.   After all, there are 13 books in the catalog with the subject Obituaries - Authorship - Fiction;  25 books under the heading Funeral Rites and Ceremonies - Fiction; & 19 titles with the subject Undertakers and Undertaking - Fiction.  & those are just the fiction offerings! Most of the non-fiction lean towards genealogy-related tomes (favorite title: Diggin' Up Bones: Obituaries of Deerfield, Fairview, and Miscellaneous Kearny County Cemeteries, Kearny County, Kansas by Betty Barnes) but there are several other tomes you might want to consider, if you are so morbidly included. 

Here's a list of some of my favorites from the library catalog:

Cemeteries

Stairway to Heaven: The Final Resting Places of Rock's Legends  by J. D. Reed

Laid to Rest in California: A Guide to the Cemeteries and Grave Sites of the Rich and Famous by Patricia Brooks and Jonathan Brooks

Obituaries


The Economist Book of Obituaries compiled by Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson

The Last Word: The New York Times Book of Obituaries and Farewells: A Celebration of Unusual Lives edited by Marvin Siegel

Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers by Alana Baranick

Eulogies

Remember Me when I'm Gone compiled by Larry King

The Book of Eulogies: A Collection of Memorial Tributes, Poetry, Essays, and Letters of Condolence edited by Phyllis Theroux

A Wonderful Life: 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit edited by Cyrus M. Copeland

Farewell, Godspeed: The Greatest Eulogies of Our Times edited by Cyrus Copeland

Miscellaneous

The American Way of Death Revisited by Jessica Mitford

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial by Mark Harris

R.I.P.: The Complete Book of Death and Dying by Constance Jones

Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Death and Dying in New Mexico by Martina Will de Chaparro

Please also consider a visit to Fabulous Dead People, a column in the New York Times Style Magazine.

I would also like to include a few books that are less about death as a phenomenon & more focused towards providing comfort after a bereavement, especially The Art of Losing, which helped me through a recent period of grief. 

Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those who Have Lost Both Parents edited by Allison Gilbert with Christina Baker Kline

The Art of Losing : Poems of Grief and Healing edited by Kevin Young

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells us about Life after Loss by George A. Bonanno