Reviews

Bodies in Motion and at Rest: On Metaphor and Mortality by Thomas Lynch

sloanhepler_'s review against another edition

medium-paced

3.75

jakespancakes's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

4.5

"Bodies in Motion and at Rest" is a book of essays written by a funeral director and poet. The essays range from subjects of love and loss to hatred of one particular cat and a perversely capitalistic 'death market.' I read "Bodies" during the last month of 2022, and it's a book that I find a fitting way to end to what has been a year filled with, well — love and loss.

kittensiikatz's review

dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

mostlyshanti's review against another edition

4.0

really beautiful and captivating, made me feel trapped in his mind in a compelling way that does not last when I am not reading, but I loved it and I might not read it again and I"m very glad I'm not american, but I can repeat things, sometimes, and make them seem like music.

livingpalm1's review against another edition

4.0

Oh my, I enjoyed these essays. Really, how can you put down a book that starts with this sentence:

"So I'm over at the Hortons' with my stretcher and mini-van and my able apprentices, young Matt Sheffler, because they found old George, the cemetery sexton, dead in bed this Thursday morning in ordinary time."

Thomas Lynch is a writer (essays and poetry) but he is also an undertaker -- second generation of an Irish Catholic family in an idyllic town in Michigan. His work caring for the dead and their grieving loved ones provides a perspective most of us do not bring to our blank pages. Grief informs him through his daily encounters at work, but also in his daily life as a single Dad, recovering from divorce and alcohol, teenagers and a hearty, hostile cat.

This is a book I want to own and visit again often.

janey's review

5.0

Still lovely the second time through.