Death, the saying goes, is bad for business. But not, it would seem, in publishing. Over the past year, the success of death-related books suggests that our engagement with mortality is booming, with Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, each exploring mortality from the perspective of surgeons who face death’s scythe every day, both becoming international bestsellers.
The latest addition to the genre is Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematorium, Caitlin Doughty’s fascinating and often very funny memoir chronicling her initiation into the death industry, beginning as a 23-year-old crematorium operator, through to her current career, six years later, as a licensed funeral director and YouTube star hosting the series Ask a Mortician.
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