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Funerals: Library Resources

This libguide is intended to provide information for managing the details prior to or after a death.

Books

Grave Matters

Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea.

More Than Sympathy

. Losing a husband, wife, father, mother, child or another near and dear person forces you to make a multitude of decisions, some large and life-changing, some small but emotionally charged. More Than Sympathy is designed to help you through these difficult circumstances.

When Someone Dies

This book provides concrete guidance on funeral arrangements, estates, probate, taxes, handling the deceased's online footprint, and much more.

Caring for Your Own Dead

Offers a guide for those making funeral arrangements with or without a funeral director. This book gives the legal requirements of each state, how to obtain and file permits and death certificates, explanations of cremation and embalming, burial procedures, and other necessary information.

Greening Death

Today, people are slowly waking up to the possibility of more sustainable and less disaffecting death care, reclaiming old practices in new ways, in a new age. Greening Death captures the passionate on-the-ground work of the Green Burial Movement, and explores the obstacles and other challenges getting in the way of more robust mobilization.

Rest in Peace

; To help prepare for the end of life, Rest in Peace is a pre-death planning guide; whether it be for your own demise or the death of someone whose end-of-life affairs you may need to attend to.

Do I Have to Wear Black to a Funeral?

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 an obituary? What's the difference? These are all questions that Florence Isaacs has been asked as a blogger for Legacy.com, a role that earned her the nickname of the "Dear Abby of Death."

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Every day, funeral director Caitlin Doughty receives dozens of questions about death. The best questions come from kids.

Last Rites

In Last Rites, author Todd Harra takes you on a fascinating exploration of American funeral practices--examining where they came from, what they mean, and how they are still evolving.

From Here to Eternity

Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)--a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life's work.

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