From scary to heartwarming and hilarious, an assortment of behind-the-scenes, true stories about life as an undertaker.From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell—and a special way of telling them.In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death’s do...

The Untold Story of American Funeral and Mourning TraditionsWhy do we embalm the deceased? Why are funerals so expensive? Is there a reason coffins are shaped the way they are? When—and why—did we start viewing the deceased? Ceremonies for honoring the departed are crucial parts of our lives, but few people know where our traditional practices come from—and what they reveal about our history, culture, and beliefs about death. In Last Rites, author Todd Har...

Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential.Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse!Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker...

The Untold Story of American Funeral and Mourning TraditionsWhy do we embalm the deceased? Why are funerals so expensive? Is there a reason coffins are shaped the way they are? When—and why—did we start viewing the deceased?Ceremonies for honoring the departed are crucial parts of our lives, but few people know where our traditional practices come from—and what they reveal about our history, culture, and beliefs about death.In Last Rites, author Todd Harra takes you ...

With humor and heart, Over Our Dead Bodies does for the undertaking profession what Mary Roach's Stiff did for cadavers, and, like Caitlin Doughty's Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? gives us permission to embrace our morbid curiosity. From the authors of Mortuary Confidential.Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . .I HA...

When the casket reached the front of the sanctuary, there was a loud cracking sound as the bottom fell out. And with a thump, down came Father Iggy.From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell—and a special way of telling them.In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant sto...

A history of the Manhattan building and its famous tenants, from Lauren Bacall to John Lennon, by the New York Times–bestselling author of "Our Crowd".When Singer sewing machine tycoon Edward Clark built a luxury apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side in the late 1800s, it was derisively dubbed "the Dakota" for being as far from the center of the downtown action as its namesake territory on the nation's western frontier. Despite its remo...

This true account of two young Americans turning traitor during the Cold War is an "absolutely smashing real-life spy story" ( New York Times Book Review ).National BestsellerAt the height of the Cold War, some of the nation's most precious secrets passed through a CIA contractor in Southern California. Only a handful of employees were cleared to handle the intelligence that came through the Black ...

"Readers will emerge with a great deal of respect for a fiercely independent woman who battled sexism to reach the pinnacle of her profession" (Publishers Weekly).Before taking her place as the second woman on the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg quietly led a revolution and forever changed life in America for both men and women. Reserved and quiet, she didn't set out to be a trailblazer, but there was something in her way: the law....

“Lascelles has achieved the seemingly impossible: a concise and highly readable history of Catholic Popes that manages to be extremely entertaining and informative at the same time.”Gerald Posner, author of God’s Bankers"A brilliant book on a number of different levels. Lascelles has an engaging prose style and an amazing eye for detail and apposite anecdote. Surely only purblind Catholic zelanti will object to this outstanding analysis.”Frank...

“A mesmerizing, blood-chilling book . . . The contrast between innocent childhood experience, and the awful understanding of that experience that came with time, is enough to make you weep"– Los Angeles TimesGöring. Hess. Mengele. Dönitz. Names that conjure up dark memories of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. They were the architects of the Third Reich. And they were fathers. Gerald Posner convinced eleven sons and daughters of Hitler’s inner circle to break...

Get the first four Alpine Grove romantic comedies in one collection at a discount! Four full-length feel-good novels that include a little bit of humor and a whole lot of fur. Each novel stands alone, but Alpine Grove is a small town, so many characters do tend to reappear. After a while, you'll start to feel like you're a member of the community.The Love, Laughter, and Fur collection from Susan C. Daffron is 1200 pages of romantic comedy fun that readers say literally has them lau...