What to Expect When You’re Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife by Robert Garland An entertaining and enlightening book about how ancient peoples dealt with death—and what we might learn from them A lively story of death, What to Expect When You’re Dead explores the fascinating death-related ... more >
Death is universal. It will meet us all. But it’s also a practical problem – what do we do with dead bodies? The Viestads live by a cemetery and are daily spectators of its routines, and their fascination with burials led them to dig deep to examine our relationship with ... more >
Dear Katherine Addison, I am a huge fan of your 2014 steampunk fantasy novel The Goblin Emperor. It was my favorite of all the books I read that year and I’ve read it three more times since. When the novel was nominated for a Hugo, I was thrilled; when it ... more >
Journalist Erica Buist travels to seven death festivals around the world (Nepal, Madagascar, Indonesia, Sicily, Japan, Mexico and New Orleans) in search of better attitudes towards death After the death of her father-in-law, journalist Erica Buist decided to travel to seven death festivals around the world, in an attempt to ... more >
A step-by-step program for getting your life in order, so you’re prepared for the unexpected. The odds of getting hit by a bus are 495,000 to 1. But the odds that you’re going to die some day? Exactly. Even the most disorganized among us can take control of our on- ... more >
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 ... more >