A very interesting and eye-opening study of how different cultures care for their dead, as studied by mortician and author Caitlin Doughty; from families in Indonesia housing a loved one’s body (for years!), to Tibetan sky burials where, once someone dies, he or she is laid out to be eaten by vultures (Doughty’s selected choice for her posthumous remains). Practices in the United States are featured as well, such as the only open-air pyre in practice, and experiments with composting human bodies in North Carolina. Doughty addresses corporatization of death, as exhibited by many funeral parlors, cremation as a means to help reduce the carbon footprint, and the growing popularity of natural burials. What she’s often found is that rituals meaningful in one culture may be viewed with distaste (or fascination) by another. And she’s also found, in the U.S. especially, there’s a tendency to disassociate with a body once it expires. Though living with grandma’s body for years may seem extreme, so too does a hospital and/or funeral home strictly enforcing a time limit of an hour (or less) to sit with the body and grieve. Accompanying the text are great illustrations by Landis Blair. – Sara Z.

As a death positive anthropologist, I was looking forward to reading this book, as it would be a great insight on death culture around the world. I enjoy Caitlin Doughty's personality and profession on both her YouTube channel and in her books, and while she very good at describing the cultural things she has seen and learned, she does so from a more personal viewpoint, than an academic one.
I don't blame her for this, she's a mortician, not a cultural anthropologist after all. That expectation was on me, my bad...

She's very respectful towards the living and the dead in her book, but as a non-American reader, there was one cringe-worthy comment she kept making throughout the book, which is a commentary made by many people whom have English as a first/only language; the constant surprise of the near perfect English spoken by those, who have English as a second, third or fourteenth language.
There is a charm and social identity to be had, when it comes to accents and dialects, and most humans will giggle at foreigners mispronouncing words which we ourselves consider simple, that's just a fact of social interaction.
So my one critique, which is not at Doughty herself, but the culture she lives in, is that commenting on nearly perfect English is like commenting on nearly perfect handwriting, nearly perfect math or nearly perfect cooking...
Please stop being impressed at other peoples ability to go to school...

My special interest is death, customs and rituals surrounding death, as well as how others grief. Being able to read Caitlin's experiences of traveling the world was awe inspiring, and something I would love to do if I could. Something I really enjoyed was her perspective and self-reflection when approaching a cultural ritual she wasn't familiar with.

I loved this book. I learned a lot and it made me rethink cremation.

Very interesting.

I think I enjoyed Doughty's <[b:Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory|25189315|Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory|Caitlin Doughty|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436549658l/25189315._SX50_.jpg|39962326] a little more, purely for it's more personal antipodes from the author. However, this one was still extremely interesting and something I enjoyed learning about.

Just finished this fantastic book. I've done some reading on grieving and the preparation of bodies for burial/cremation/etc. in different cultures, but this book went above and beyond what I was expecting. I loved hearing updated info about green burials in North America! Highly recommended for anyone interested in different ways of grieving, celebrating loved ones who have passed, or trying to make informed decisions about how they would like their body cared for upon death.