From Here To Eternity

By Caitlin Doughty Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99

In her previous memoir, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Caitlin Doughty drew on her experience as a crematorium worker to examine attitudes to death. Now a licensed mortician with her own alternative funeral practice in Los Angeles, for this second book she turns her attention to death-care practices around the world. Using examples from Spain, the Americas and the Far East, Doughty contrasts the formal restraint of western funeral directors with more intimate, hands-on traditions. In Indonesia she sees long-dead corpses brought into homes to be lovingly dressed by family members. Squeamishness and avoidance of death, Doughty argues, put at risk our ability to properly grieve. With humorous asides, demystifying practical information (exactly what happens to a composted corpse) and appealing black-and-white illustrations, she gives pointers towards ways in which we might create more meaningful and involving death traditions, such as the community ceremony in which she participates at an open-air pyre in Colorado. The end result is a book that is moving, inspiring and very far from morbid.