Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Book cover of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

Book description

Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life's work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead.…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Smoke Gets in Your Eyes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Elizabeth Anne Wood

Author

I could not resist this book partly because I was already familiar with Doughty’s, “Ask a Mortician” YouTube series. I loved the way that she used her own experience as a young crematory operator, weaving in details of her personal life along the way, to show us all the different things that happen to bodies after they die.

I loved the dark humor she brought to subjects like embalming, cremation, and funeral directing. The poignant stories about collecting bodies from the places where they died, cremating bodies, and talking to family members or loved ones, helped me see the deeply…

From Elizabeth's list on coping with the fact that we’re all going to die.

Erica Buist

Author

A classic recommendation throughout the death world, but Caitlin’s memoir about working in a crematorium is shot through with activism, challenging society’s fear of death and the corpse, and makes a brilliant argument for it being the root of a lot of avoidable problems.

From Erica's list on to deal with general death anxiety.