This book is a deeply honest and vulnerable account of the funeral industry from the unique viewpoint of a council funeral officer. I read this book before I started working in funeral care and found Evie Kingâs experiences to be both inspiring and reassuring: the human capacity for caring for strangers is absolutely limitless.
Itâs a beautiful and informative book for anyone in the industry or just interested in what goes on!
Imagine having that sentence said to you. And then imagine it actually being pertinent. Welcome to Evie King's world.
What happens if you die without family or money? The answer to this very three-in-the-morning question is that Evie, or someone like her, will step in and arrange your funeral.
Evie is a local council worker charged with carrying out Section 46 funerals under the Public Health Act. Or to put it in less cold, legislative language; funerals for those with nobody around, willing or able to bury or cremate them.
Iâm
a physicist who ended up doing their PhD in philosophy, because the âso
whatâ question for me always was more interesting to answer than
finding out
how the physical world is changing.
Working
as a climate scientist I see how climate change and extreme
weather devastate livelihoods on a daily basis. It makes me very aware I
know nothing, but also that the philosophical and humanist ideas we
build our societies upon are much more important
to solve the climate crisis than physics and technology. One of the
most important ones
is to reclaim freedom and actually allow people to live good lives.
This book shocked me. It shouldnât have, I knew that humanist ideas have been oppressed and their advocates killed and persecuted.
But reading about it in the course of history and how much of these ideas seem the most natural to me, are continuing to be challenged by official authorities and more subtle lobbies that shape social narratives was very eye opening.
Fighting for freedom will never be easy, but always be the most important thing we can do.
Seven hundred years of heroic humanists (and their enemies), from the acclaimed author of How to Live and At The Existentialist Cafe
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
***AS READ ON RADIO 4***
The bestselling, prizewinning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Cafe explores 700 years of writers, thinkers, scientists and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human.
'I can't imagine a better history' PHILIP PULLMAN * 'Fascinating, moving, funny' OLIVER BURKEMAN
If you are reading this, it's likely you already have some affinity with humanism, even if you don't think of yourselfâŚ