From here to eternity: traveling the world to find the good death
Bestsellers (Non-fiction), Customs and cultures, Lifestyle
Human-narrated audio
Summary
Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body. Grandpa's mummy has lived… in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes. With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty encounters vividly decomposed bodies and participates in compelling, powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in America. Introduces death-care innovators researching green burial and body composting, explores new spaces for mourning--including a glowing Buddha columbarium in Japan and America's only open-air pyre--and reveals unexpected new possibilities for our own death rituals. Bestseller. 2017.