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3.76k reviews for:
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Caitlin Doughty
4.32 AVERAGE
3.76k reviews for:
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Caitlin Doughty
4.32 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
A quick, transformative read
The anecdotes and ideas in this book will stay with me long after I finished the last page. It inspired me to want to learn more about death rituals and to work on my own relationship with emotions surrounding death. It also made me laugh! How unexpected and great.
The anecdotes and ideas in this book will stay with me long after I finished the last page. It inspired me to want to learn more about death rituals and to work on my own relationship with emotions surrounding death. It also made me laugh! How unexpected and great.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
« Death avoidance is not an individual failing; it’s a cultural one. »
An incredible read that really changed my perspective and my relationship with death and what it means to grieve.
Each chapter is a small glimpse on how different cultures around the world come to term with death, and how some of them embrace it fully. Not only was it a fascinating read, it ended up being also quite comforting seeing how people embrace their departed ones with care and love.
My only « qualm » with it would be that with so many places around the world that hold different death rituals, I wish the US wasn’t featured more than once. I did enjoy how it highlighted the strangeness of the death industry (in the US, but most likely in western countries in general), as well as how we tend to hide the reality of death in the west instead of embracing it. I hope this helps open the discussion on the important question such as what we want to do with our own body when the end comes, or just the willingness to talk about death in general.
An incredible read that really changed my perspective and my relationship with death and what it means to grieve.
Each chapter is a small glimpse on how different cultures around the world come to term with death, and how some of them embrace it fully. Not only was it a fascinating read, it ended up being also quite comforting seeing how people embrace their departed ones with care and love.
My only « qualm » with it would be that with so many places around the world that hold different death rituals, I wish the US wasn’t featured more than once. I did enjoy how it highlighted the strangeness of the death industry (in the US, but most likely in western countries in general), as well as how we tend to hide the reality of death in the west instead of embracing it. I hope this helps open the discussion on the important question such as what we want to do with our own body when the end comes, or just the willingness to talk about death in general.
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
This is lwk a 3.5⭐️ but only because I wasn’t really in the mood for it.
I appreciate Caitlin's perspective as a funeral director, which made me not only think more about our relationship to death but about our relationship to dead bodies themselves. I also like the places and rituals she chose to highlight, but each section felt like it ended too soon. Each place felt depicted and described, but not really unpacked or deeply thought through. I wish more history had been included on where certain attitudes towards death emerge from. And I wish the authors had done more thinking on the page about the significance of these different rituals, and how each one changes the meaning of death and relationship to a lost person.
Also, it felt entirely catered to a western audience, which at some points made the depictions of other places feel more like spectacles of "strangeness" rather than as meaningful places and people to learn from. That bothered me in its irony with what the book claims to be about.
Also, it felt entirely catered to a western audience, which at some points made the depictions of other places feel more like spectacles of "strangeness" rather than as meaningful places and people to learn from. That bothered me in its irony with what the book claims to be about.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
If you're familiar with the author's previous books I would say this follows a very similar vein. I think the author writes emotionally but still informative about the acts of death. In the other book that I read of hers, smoke gets in your eyes. She describes her experience with cremation and becoming a funeral director. This book explores death around the world and her experiences with it. I really liked this book. It was informative. It told of personal stories. It was interesting.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced