title: Cemetery Stories: Haunted Graveyards, Embalming Secrets, and the Life of a Corpse After Death
author:  Katherine Ramsland 
description: The recent success of HBO's funeral home comedy Six Feet Under proves the power of the macabre over public imagination. "[A]mused, disturbed, and delighted by the range of human behavior surrounding the subject of death," Ramsland (Ghost, Forecasts, Aug. 20; etc.) undertook a pop-anthropological survey of "cemetery culture" by interviewing graveyard caretakers, "death-care" consultants, funeral directors, grave diggers, monument dealers and mortuary assistants. This rambling, anecdotal account traces burial traditions such as embalming, cremation (30% of all funerals), corpse preparation, restorative techniques, cadaver cosmetics and unconventional funerals like the one attended by the deceased's fellow nudists. At Houston's National Museum of Funeral History and the annual National Funeral Directors Association's convention, Ramsland, a Rutgers professor, learns about mortuary schools and entrepreneurial schemes like hologram tombstones, the $65,000 mummification procedure and cemetery kiosks with touch-screen biographies of the deceased. Along with instructions on gravestone rubbing, artistic grave markers and unusual epitaphs, the book introduces "taphophiles," who visit cemeteries as a hobby. The book's closing section recounts ghastly tales of ghouls, corpse abuse, necrophilia and people buried alive, and fascinating interviews with people who grew up in funeral homes. Although it's "the corpseless soul that inspires the most fear," those with weak stomachs might want to skip the graphic description of autopsy procedures, botched reinterments and adipocere ("body cheese"). A bibliography and list of Web sites provide further resources. (Oct.)Forecast: This should see a brief spike in sales at Halloween (aided by promotion at Grim Rides, an elegant online bookstore specializing in death-related volumes [www.geocities.com/grimrides].
zlib_text: THE COFFINMAKER’S GARDEN
  
    
  
  Stuart MacBride
  
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
  ![](Images/image00318.jpeg)
  
   _Copyright_
  
  This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real
  events, businesses, organisations and localities are intended only to give the
  fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and
  incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
  fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is
  entirely coincidental. The only exception to this is the character Jane Jopson
  who the author has been authorised to fictionalise and include within this
  volume. All behaviour, history, and character traits assigned to her fictional
  representation have been designed to serve the needs of the narrative and do
  not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real person.
  
  The quotation ‘Sauf’, und würg’ dich zu todt!’ is from the opera _Siegfried_
  by Richard Wagner, first performed at the Bayreuth Festival Th