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Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History Of Burial
By Penny Colman
Henry Holt & Company
Okay, it would be very unusual for me to give a poor review to a book that features photographs of gravestones and a history of burial customs, but I must say that I disagree with the Amazon.Com reviewers who gave this book a ****1/2 rating. I'm thinking that this rating is from people who aren't used to reading morbid subject matter, because this book does provide a good general overview of different aspects of death - from decomposition and autopsies to burial and mourning customs. If you've never read a book about death before, yes, I suppose you would enjoy this book. However, for those of us who have researched the topic for a long time, this book seems amateurish and dull. It's filled with many personal anecdotes from the author, some of which are interesting (the discussion of her brother's death and decomposition, for example) but many of which seem to only serve to fill up space. There really is so much to research and discuss about death that it doesn't seem necessary to me to talk about your friend's conversation at a funeral. But I guess Penny figures she's adding a dose of human reality to the proceedings, and that's fine. It just didn't interest me that much...
The other thing that I found annoying about this tome was the sloppy research. For example, on a photograph of mummified monks has this confident caption: "Mummies were stored in many ways, and some, like these that were probably photographed in Mexico, were carefully placed on shelves." PROBABLY??? Gee, couldn't she have done a wee bit more research for us? Thanks a whole hell of a lot... Anyway, I think the photo is actually from the Capuchin Monk catacombs in Palermo, Italy. How can you trust a book like that?
On the bright side, there are a handful of interesting photographs of historic and eccentric gravestones, mortuary practices (such as this famous photo of civil war embalming), and post-mortem photography. However, the handful of exceptional photos are countered by a number of dull and amateurish photographs as well. On the whole, a very disappointing work and only rates two skulls out of five.
NN - Strictly For Newbies!
All photographs are culled from "Corpses, Coffins And Crypts" and may not be reprinted without permission of the publisher... you know, the usual...

Peter Ackroyd, The Times
"Deeply pleasing . . . Entertainment of the most garish and exquisite kind . . . A Baedeker of the dead."

Synopsis: "From Roman burial rites to the horrors of the plague, from the founding of the great Victorian cemeteries to the development of cremation and the current approach of metropolitan society towards death and bereavement -- including more recent trends to displays of collective grief and the cult of mourning, such as that surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales -- NECROPOLIS: LONDON AND ITS DEAD offers a vivid historical narrative of this great city's attitude to going the way of all flesh. As layer upon layer of London soil reveals burials from pre-historic and medieval times, the city is revealed as one giant grave, filled with the remains of previous eras -- pagan, Roman, medieval, Victorian. This fascinating blend of archaeology, architecture and anecdote includes such phenomena as the rise of the undertaking trade and the pageantry of state funerals; public executions and bodysnatching. Ghoulishly entertaining and full of fascinating nuggets of information, Necropolis leaves no headstone unturned in its exploration of our changing attitudes to the deceased among us. Both anecdotal history and cultural commentary, Necropolis will take its place alongside classics of the city such as Peter Ackroyd's LONDON."

Quaint Epitaphs
by Susan Darling Safford (A.J. Ochs)
Recommended by Melissa:
"I wanted to share with you a book that I just got from Ebay. Quaint Epitaphs collected around 1860. It is a wonderful book, with too many to name a favorite.
But [here are] two very good ones, both from Kent to share with you. (there are
epitaphs from both the States and overseas) :

Listen, Mother, Aunt and me
Were killed, here we be.
We should not had time to missle
Had they blown the engine whistle.

and

Alpha White
Weight 309 lbs.
Open wide ye golden gates
That lead to the heavenly shore.
Our father suffered in passing through
And mother wieghs much more."