From Here to Eternity

Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarked on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world's funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account suggests that the rituals of the American funeral industry-especially chemical embalming-might be the most particular (and peculiar) of all, and that the most effective rituals are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.