Author: Caleb Wilde
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062465260
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
“Wise, vulnerable, and surprisingly relatable . . . funny in all the right places and enormously helpful throughout. It will change how you think about death.” —Rachel Held Evans, New York Times–bestselling author of Searching for Sunday We are a people who deeply fear death. While humans are biologically wired to evade death for as long as possible, we have become too adept at hiding from it, vilifying it, and—when it can be avoided no longer—letting the professionals take over. Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde understands this reticence and fear. He had planned to get as far away from the family business as possible. He wanted to make a difference in the world, and how could he do that if all the people he worked with were . . . dead? Slowly, he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones was making a difference—in other people’s lives to be sure, but it also seemed to be saving his own. A spirituality of death began to emerge as he observed the family who lovingly dressed their deceased father for his burial; the nursing home that honored a woman’s life by standing in procession as her body was taken away; the funeral that united a conflicted community. Through stories like these, told with equal parts humor and poignancy, Wilde’s candid memoir offers an intimate look into the business of death and a new perspective on living and dying. “Open[s] up conversations about life’s ultimate concerns.” —The Washington Post “As a look behind the closed doors of the death industry, as well as a candid exploration of Wilde’s own faith journey, this book is fascinating and compelling.” —National Catholic Reporter “[A] stunner of a debut.” —Rachel Held Evans, author of Inspired
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245950
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 175
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Book Description
"Morbid and illuminating" (Entertainment Weekly)—a young mortician goes behind the scenes of her curious profession. 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. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Author: Emilly Prado
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781892061874
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Funeral for Flaca is an exploration of things lost and found-love, identity, family-and the traumas that transcend bodies, borders, cultures, and generations. Emilly Prado retraces her experience coming of age as a prep-turned-chola-turned-punk in this collection that is one-part memoir-in-essays, and one-part playlist, zigzagging across genres and decades, much like the rapidly changing and varied tastes of her youth. Emilly spends the late 90's and early aughts looking for acceptance as a young Chicana growing up in the mostly-white suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Portland, Oregon in 2008. Ni de aquí, ni de allá, she tries to find her place in the in between. Growing up, the boys reject her, her father cheats on her mother, then the boys cheat on her and she cheats on them. At 21-years-old, Emilly checks herself into a psychiatric ward after a mental breakdown. One year later, she becomes a survivor of sexual assault. A few years after that, she survives another attempted assault. She searches for the antidote that will cure her, cycling through love, heartbreak, sex, an eating disorder, alcohol, an ever-evolving style, and, of course, music. She captures the painful reality of what it means to lose and find your identity, many times over again. For anyone who has ever lost their way as a child or as an adult, Funeral for Flaca unravels the complex layers of an unpredictable life, inviting us into an intimate and honest journey profoundly told with humor and heart by Emilly Prado. "I felt these essays deep in my heart. Funeral for Flaca is like a Chicana punk rock ballad in prose. Soulful and brave, these essays of Prado's life made me feel less lonely, less outcasted, and more seen-and isn't that why we come to books in the first place?" -Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina "Once I started reading Funeral for Flaca, I could not stop. The series of essays traverses Prado's life and weaves a narrative that is gripping and beautifully told. Each essay is a finely crafted tribute to periods in Prado's labyrinthine path, intersecting trauma, pathology, loss and, ultimately, perseverance and healing." -Lisa Congdon, artist and author of Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic "This book is brilliant. It tells the unique stories of what it means to grow up Latina in the U.S. and the universal experiences of love, coming of age and finding your own voice and self. Prado weaves personal stories that make you laugh, cry and give you hope for the future." -Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, author and co-editor of Presente! "Emilly Prado's Funeral For Flaca is fierce, funny, intelligent, and vulnerable. This memoir-in-essays speaks with ease and honesty about the ferociously hard, isolating moments of youth, and Prado's matter-of-fact tone reads like a friend's voice talking us through the worst of it. Funeral for Flaca is here to remind us: there is a woman lying dormant inside every girl." -Margaret Malone, author of People Like You
Author: Amy Biancolli
Publisher: Behler Publications, LLC
ISBN: 1933016469
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
"Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.
Author: Allen Simmons
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1300390042
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 97
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Book Description
THIS PUBLICATION IS THE STREET POEMS FROM ALLEN J. SIMMONS JR. MY WORDS ARE MY OWN...AND THESE WORDS ARE FROM MY MIND AND SOUL! PLEASE ENJOY MY WORKS!
Author: Kenneth McKenzie
Publisher: Kensington Books
ISBN: 0806531797
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.
Author: Kevin Toolis
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306921456
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
An intimate, lyrical look at the ancient rite of the Irish wake--and the Irish way of overcoming our fear of death Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice. Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead--and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too. In My Father's Wake, acclaimed author and award-winning filmmaker Kevin Toolis unforgettably describes his own father's wake and explores the wider history and significance of this ancient and eternal Irish ritual. Perhaps we, too, can all find a better way to deal with our mortality -- by living and loving as the Irish do.
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429927844
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 532
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Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.
Author: Asia Hill
Publisher: Good2go Publishing
ISBN: 1943686785
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113
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Book Description
Ja'ziya (JuJu) has blood on her hands. At least the law says so. After her best friend Tiki and Aunt Tae are "knocked off" police apprehend Ja'ziya for both murders. But her Eastside Crazy Crew cohorts Dirty E and ReRe know different. They suspect their sworn enemy Lil Man is behind the takedown of their associate. Lil Man wants to destroy the ECC and everyone connected to them. Even going so far as to employ the services of corrupt cops. Now with Ja'ziya's trial looming Lil Man's testimony could put her away for life. But not if Dirty E and ReRe find him first. Nor are they the only ones hunting for Lil Man. So is local gangster Young Meech. Who's seen those closest to him snuffed out at the hands of Lil Man. Meech wants to return the favor before he kills Lil Man, personally. But his vengeance is delayed when tragedy hits close to home, forcing Meech to choose between doing the right thing... and taking his pound of flesh. One thing however is certain, before all the players involved can move forward Lil Man... must die.
Author: Johnny Jon Jon
Publisher: Ethos Books
ISBN: 9811842442
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
In Johnny Jon Jon’s plays, seemingly ordinary events are turned into hauntingly profound exchanges when the individual’s sense of self comes under scrutiny. In Hawa, a new Muslim convert finds herself tasked with overseeing the funeral arrangements of her partner. In Potong, a son is sent away by a mother to return to Singapore to undergo the coming-of-age rites of passage that await him: circumcision and conscription. Deftly alternating between beats of humour and tension, Jon Jon reveals how these characters contend with the paradigms, manifest or otherwise, that shape their existence.
