Death Embraced is like no other book you have ever read. Fascinating and entertaining, it leads readers to ponder issues that should not be avoided. Some may want to use it as a guide to visiting New Orleans graveyards . . . or as a guide to life. "An amazing book by an even more amazing writer, historian and educator with vast knowledge of the Crescent City's history and an intimate understanding of many of the Big Easy's lesser-known cultural traditions and customs. A must-read for anyone who is serious about learning the true history of New Orleans. I dare you to try to put it down after reading its first few pages." -Edmund W. Lewis, Editor, The Louisiana Weekly "A gem of a book, full of little things you didn't know you wanted to know. With subtitle wit and serious depth of knowledge, Mary LaCoste shares the down and dirty of one of New Orleans most mysterious institutions." -Liz Scott, New Orleans Magazine

In Tales from Kentucky Funeral Homes, William Lynwood Montell has collected stories and reminiscences from funeral home directors and embalmers across the state. These accounts provide a record of the business of death as it has been practiced in Kentucky over the past fifty years. The collection ranges from tales of old-time burial practices, to stories about funeral customs unique to the African American community, to tales of premonitions, mistakes, and even humorous occurrences. Other stories involve such unusual aspects of the business as snake-handling funerals, mistaken identities, and in-home embalming. Taken together, these firsthand narratives preserve an important aspect of Kentucky social life not likely to be collected elsewhere. Most of these funeral home stories involve the recent history of Kentucky funeral practices, but some descriptive accounts go back to the era when funeral directors used horse-drawn wagons to reach secluded areas. These accounts, including stories about fainting relatives, long-winded preachers, and pallbearers falling into graves, provide significant insights into the pivotal role morticians have played in local life and culture over the years.

Death is Serious is not a simple dignified, economical look into the funeral industry. It is a slap in the face look, with a bloody towel. Death is Serious presents itself like a virus in black and white through a collection of stories told as if you were listening to them in a bar. In graphic detail events which occurred behind and in front of that big green door in the funeral home are expressed that will captivate the curious, constipate the courageous and instigate conversation. Reading Death is Serious may cause serious emotional outbursts. The reader accepts all responsibility for reading Death in Serious.

Death is a hard topic to talk about, but exploring it openly can lead to a new understanding about how to live. In this series of eighteen essays, college students examine death in new ways. Their essays provide remarkable ideas about how death can transform people and societies.

Alfred G. Killilea, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, teams up with former student Dylan D. Lynch and various contributors to share insights about a multitude of issues tied to death, including terrorists, child soldiers, Nazism, fascism, suicide, capital punishment and the Black Death.

Other essays explore death themes in classic and contemporary literature, such as in Dante, Peter Pan, Kurt Vonnegut, and Christopher Hitchens. Still others explore death in modern context, considering the work of Jane Goodall, the threat of death on Mount Everest, the origins of the "Grim Reaper," and how violent street gangs deal with death.

At a time when American politics suffers from deep ideological divisions that could make our nation ungovernable, our mutual mortality may be the most potent force for unifying us and helping us to find common ground.

This collection of over 1100 epitaphs is not only the largest collection of epitaphs extant, it's the only one devoted to the epitaphs of ordinary people. Arranged by categories such as humor, eulogies, romantic, or borrowed quotes, it's an enlightening and sometime emotional window onto the final thoughts covering more than a thousand people. Sources of quotes have been annotated for relevance. Aside from being arranged by categories, each epitaph is indexed by first line and name(s) of the interred, as well as by cemetery. The majority of the entries are modern though some date as far back as the 1840s. All-in-all, an extraordinary glimpse into the lives of ordinary people and a reference book unlike any that have come before. It opens a new world in the study of folklore and anthropology. It mines untouched veins of gold. In many ways, epitaphs are haiku for the dead. They should be read with patience, discretion, and a glass of wine. Do not hurry through them.

Gravestones, cemeteries, and memorial markers offer fixed points in time to examine Americans' changing attitudes toward death and dying. In tracing the evolution of commemorative practices from the seventeenth century to the present, Sherene Baugher and Richard Veit offer insights into our transformation from a preindustrial and agricultural to an industrial, capitalist country. Paying particular attention to populations often overlooked in the historical record - African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrant groups - the authors also address the legal, logistical, and ethical issues that confront field researchers who conduct cemetery excavations. Baugher and Veit reveal how gender, race, ethnicity, and class have shaped the cultural landscapes of burial grounds and summarize knowledge gleaned from the archaeological study of human remains and the material goods interred with the deceased. From the practices of historic period Native American groups to elite mausoleums, and from almshouse mass graves to the rise in popularity of green burials today, The Archaeology of Cemeteries and Gravemarkers provides an overview of the many facets of this fascinating topic.