A Tomb With a View

By Peter Ross,

Book cover of A Tomb With a View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards

Book description

WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021

A FINANCIAL TIMES, I PAPER AND STYLIST BOOK OF THE YEAR

'In his absorbing book about the lost and the gone, Peter Ross takes us from Flanders Fields to Milltown to Kensal Green, to melancholy islands and surprisingly lively…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked A Tomb With a View as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Although Ross’s book appears to be a guide to visiting graveyards, its focus often turns toward the people who work there: gravediggers, tour guides, historians, and even memorial artists. One of my favorite essays in the book introduces a modern maker of death masks, whose work appears on three headstones in Highgate Cemetery. The eulogy for “the best-known guide at the most famous cemetery in Ireland” nearly brought me to tears.

A Tomb With A View tells the stories of the graveyards and their dead, true, but most of all Ross conveys how the relationships between the dead and those…

From Loren's list on about cemeteries.

As much as Ross's book is about visiting graveyards, it's even more about the people who work in graveyards: from gravediggers to tour guides to historians to memorial artists. One of my favorite essays in the book is about the Iranian father who built an exquisite monument to his 11-year-old son in London's poshest cemetery. Another favorite is the discussion with a modern maker of death masks. The eulogy for "the best-known guide at the most famous cemetery in Ireland" nearly brought me to tears. Ross tells the stories of the graveyards and their dead, true, but most of all…

From Loren's list on death-positive memoirs.

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