From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World by Caitlin Doughty - Death Memoir - Non Fiction Paperback

Details
Condition: Brand New
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781474606530
Publisher: W&N (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Age Range: Adult

Overview
From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death is a fascinating, funny, and deeply humane travel memoir from practising mortician Caitlin Doughty, exploring how cultures across the globe honour their dead. Blending vivid first-hand reportage with wry humour, Doughty visits a glowing Buddhist columbarium in Japan, a candlelit cemetery in Mexico, and America's only legal open-air pyre, questioning why Western society hides death away. Thoughtful, funny, and quietly profound, this brand new paperback is essential reading for anyone curious about mortality, ritual, grief, and what it truly means to say goodbye well.

About the Book
As a working mortician frustrated by the West's fear-driven approach to death, Caitlin Doughty set out across the world to find better ways of dying, grieving, and remembering. From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death is the result: a globe-spanning investigation into funerary customs most Western readers have never encountered. In Japan, Doughty tours a futuristic Buddhist columbarium where illuminated glass statues represent the deceased. In Indonesia, she meets families who exhume and lovingly redress mummified relatives during the Ma'nene ritual. In Bolivia, she encounters ñatitas — human skulls kept in homes and cared for as protective, wish-granting spirits. Closer to home, she visits Crestone, Colorado, site of the only legal open-air pyre in the United States, reflecting on how American funerals came to prioritise embalming and emotional distance over genuine mourning. Throughout, Doughty combines careful research with the candour and gallows humour familiar to fans of her "Ask a Mortician" series and bestseller Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Illustrated with striking artwork by Landis Blair, the book never sensationalises its subject; instead it builds a compassionate case that societies which keep death close, rather than hidden, often grieve more honestly and heal more completely. Readers come away with a richer vocabulary for discussing dying, curiosity about unfamiliar rituals, and permission to imagine funerals that celebrate a life rather than simply dispose of a body. It is travel writing, cultural anthropology, and memoir all at once — sharp, surprising, and unexpectedly life-affirming.

Key Benefits

• Explores fascinating, little-known death rituals from Japan, Indonesia, Bolivia, Mexico, and the USA
• Blends travel writing, cultural anthropology, and memoir into one compelling narrative
• Written with warmth, curiosity, and gallows humour by a practising professional mortician
• Encourages healthier, more open conversations about death, dying, and grief
• Illustrated throughout by acclaimed artist Landis Blair
• A thought-provoking gift for book clubs, travel readers, and anthropology enthusiasts

About the Author
Caitlin Doughty is an American mortician, writer, and death-industry reform advocate. She founded the funeral home collective Undertaking LA and created the acclaimed "Ask a Mortician" web series, which demystifies death care for millions of viewers. Doughty has written three New York Times bestsellers — Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, From Here to Eternity, and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? — and co-founded The Order of the Good Death, a collective advocating for more honest engagement with mortality. Illustrations throughout this edition are by Landis Blair, illustrator of the prize-winning graphic novel The Hunting Accident.

Why You'll Love This Book
Funny, fearless, and quietly moving, this globe-trotting memoir turns an uncomfortable subject into a genuinely page-turning adventure. Doughty's warmth and wit make heavy themes approachable, while her respect for every culture she visits keeps things honest. Perfect for fans of travel writing, cultural anthropology, or anyone ready to rethink death, dying, and how we truly say goodbye.

Please Note: This is the UK paperback edition (ISBN 9781474606530); cover and interior artwork match the edition shown.