From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death – Paperback by Caitlin Doughty (Illustrated by Landis Blair)

Why We Shelved It:

A breathtaking, eye-opening global journey into alternative death practices and cultural rituals around mortality. Mortician, activist, and bestselling author Caitlin Doughty travels across the globe—from open-air cremation pyres in Spain and skull-cleaning rituals in Bolivia to green burial forests in California—to discover how different societies celebrate, accept, and integrate the end of life. Shelved proudly at the intersection of our Fiction & Dark Lore and Lifestyle & Botanical Wellness collections right alongside Caitlin Doughty’s Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? and Mary Roach’s Stiff, this thought-provoking paperback challenges our modern death-denying culture and inspires a more grounded, holistic view of mortality.

The Work:

In Western society, death has been largely outsourced to corporate funeral homes, sanitized, and hidden from view, leaving many of us terrified of the inevitable. Seeking a healthier relationship with our mortality, Caitlin Doughty packed her bags and investigated how other cultures embrace the dead rather than bury them away.

Inside this beautifully illustrated paperback, readers will explore:

• Global Death Customs: Journeying to Indonesia, Japan, Bolivia, Mexico, and Spain to witness firsthand how communities care for their deceased with intimacy and reverence.

• Reforming Modern Industry: Examining the environmental and emotional toll of the American death industry and exploring the burgeoning green burial movement.

• The Good Death: Cultivating a mindset that accepts decay and loss as natural parts of the great biological cycle, reducing fear and deepening appreciation for life.

• Artistic Storytelling: Haunting, gorgeous black-and-white illustrations by Landis Blair that bring each international ritual to vivid life.

Equal parts travelogue, cultural anthropology, and quiet manifesto, From Here to Eternity is an essential read for anyone seeking to reclaim agency over life, death, and everything in between.