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From Here to Eternity

Travelling the World to Find the Good Death

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From Here to Eternity

By: Caitlin Doughty, Landis Blair
Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
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Summary

 As a practising mortician, Caitlin Doughty has long been fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies. In From Here to Eternity she sets out in search of cultures unburdened by such fears. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body. She meets Bolivian ñatitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and introduces us to the Japanese ritual of kotsuage, in which relatives use chopsticks to pluck their loved-ones' bones from cremation ashes.

With curiosity and morbid humour, Doughty introduces us to inspiring death-care innovators, participates in powerful death practices almost entirely unknown in the West and explores new spaces for mourning - including a futuristic glowing-Buddha columbarium in Japan, a candlelit Mexican cemetery, and America's only open-air pyre. In doing so she expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with 'dignity' and reveals unexpected possibilities for our own death rituals.

Read by Caitlin Doughty
(p) 2017 Recorded Books LLC©2018 Caitlin Doughty Death & Dying Physical Illness & Disease Sociology Smoking Tobacco Heartfelt Indonesia
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Critic Reviews

Each chapter covers a culture with a highly distinctive and apparently ghastly approach to their dearly departed . . . Think Bill Bryson doing an underworld special. This humane book gently provokes you to wonder: what exactly is your ideal funeral?
Caitlin Doughty, joyful member of the death-positive movement, describes what happens to our mortal remains with relish . . . Jaunty, boisterous and unsentimental, Doughty believes that we in the West have made death and its aftermath into a corporate, perfunctory affair, in which the meaning of an ending is denied. Her mission is to 'reclaim public understanding of dying' and to bring individuality and joy back into our dealings with the dead (Nicci Gerard)
Compelling . . . Doughty's writing will give you the giggles as well as send a chill down your spine
From Here To Eternity is fascinating, thought-provoking and - who would have guessed? - sometimes funny. Put it on your bucket list (Neil Armstrong)
Doughty's lively (and charmingly illustrated) cascade of anecdotes about how various cultures handle death spells out how contemporary Western fastidiousness about dead bodies is by no means universally shared. We are introduced to a variety of startling practices . . . and pervading the book is Doughty's ferocious critique of the industrialisation of death and burial that is standard in the United States and spreading rapidly elsewhere. Doughty invites us to look at and contemplate alternatives . . . we have choices beyond the conventional; we can think about how we want our dead bodies to be treated as part of a natural physical cycle (Rowan Williams)
Doughty is fun, with an eye for the bizarre and the absurd. She hits the road in quest of cultures untroubled by the western taboos surrounding mortality (Robert McCrum)
Doughty is a relentlessly curious and chipper tour guide to the underworld . . . a likable, witty companion. It is a difficult high-wire act: to make death interesting and funny enough that we'll drop our fears and read, without losing sight of the gravity of the topic. I couldn't help thinking that her dispatches from the dark side were doing us all a kindness
From Here to Eternity is Doughty's tour of the death ways of other peoples, from Bolivia to Barcelona . . . [she] chronicles each of these practices with tenderheartedness, a technician's fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief
Doughty finds the humanity in other cultures' relationship with death that seems to be lacking in ours
From Indonesia to Mexico and all points in between, Doughty talks to a wide array of professionals, handling the topic with curiosity, frankness and no small amount of humour (Doug Johnstone)
Both sensitive and light, and thoroughly researched, written by an author who genuinely wanted to learn from, not fetishise, other customs
Really fascinating (Alice Waters)
All stars
Most relevant
this story was so informative and incredible hearing all the different cultures and what they do with death it's actually quite saddening for the western world I saw both my nan and grandad and bond in a casket while I was a coffin and now when I look back on it I'm side is a beautiful thing I would have liked to have been there I would have liked to have held her I would have liked to have washed my nan and grandad I think it would have really healed my soul because ever since my nan died and I stared at her and a horrible coma struggling and are sterile hospital when they treated her dreadfully because they did I would have rather of had her and a warm bed at home with my grandad beside her I would have at least loved to have done something Caitlin showing me there Caitlin Sean my mum that my mum nearly died last year at the age of 56 and I became the matriarch and went to work sorting out the surgeries giving the doctors orders and allowing them to do it they needed to do to keep her alive next time in the future when the time comes for her to pass she wants her body wash naturally she wants the family there she wants a cardboard coffin and to be cremated and I can tell you I'm from New Zealand and I will not define who wishes my mum deserves the best and so does my father my father struggles because he's Catholic and he believes and having the funeral service in the embalming my mum however has been through a lot more both her parents are gone and Caitlin helped her see the light Caitlin helped me overcome my fear of death and I would have panic attacks at the idea of death I had so many dreams where I would be floating and I'll be taken two different cemeteries and different funeral homes and I could smell the embalming fluid there were older people there were young children that had passed away and I saw that in some weird way as a message and when I found Caitlin those dreams disappeared those awful smelling dreams and I cannot think her enough not only am I an order of the good death death positive movement ambassador in a sense out here because I push for it I spread that word to every friend I have every person I know to go and reach out and watch her and go online and have a look and listen I know more now education is so important I have two children one sadly is severely mentally disabled and I fear he may never understand about death but at least I can try I'm about tolisten to her next story will cats eat my eyeballs or will my cat eat my eyeballs and I'm hoping it will help me so that I can be prepared to explain to my children that one day I will die and they will die to bit to not be afraid I've also since found and realised and accepted my own spirituality it's not religion definitely not Catholicism that it's all to do with consciousness and the universe being a consciousness I believe we are simply beings of light held within these vessels until the time comes that we leave I know this because I have seen and heard many different dead people related and not related to me I wouldn't embrace it because I feared it but now I do I'm not afraid anymore thank you Caitlin and thank you to all of you who work for her and all of you pushing for this I like the idea of becoming human compost I've actually even messaged them I would like to offer my body up to them whether or not they can do that because I live so far away is it different story you may notice that I have absolutely no punctuation and the spelling may be really poor in this review that is because I suffer a lot of my own chronic illnesses I don't know how long I live in my life my mum's side of the family do not live very long my dad's last until they hundreds but I contemplate consistently about the idea of prolong death do I want it was it so bad that my nan died at the age of 68 washing meant to go she struggled and suffered a lot of pain she had a lot of surgeries and she was a strong woman she's at peace now and she was cremated and she lies beneath the soil next to the love of her life I miss you Nan and grandad but I know you're here this is a fantastic book along with the first book I have learnt so much and have been deeply touched I will never stop contemplating my mum has already made an exercise book which is her death planbook and this is all thanks to Caitlin there are no words in my life or beyond that will never be able to thank you to all members of the order of the good death

Caitlin is the way of the future she points toward

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Thank you Caitlin Doughty for yet another death book us near mortals can follow. I love listening to your voice and any book narrated by the author.

Love <3

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Was so sad when this ended! So interesting, definitely opens your eyes, i learnt so much

Loved it!

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Doughty writes and performs this book so beautifully. I love the way she mixes anecdotes with facts in her work. I read her memoir Smoke Gets In Your Eyes years ago, and found this book to be in the same vein while presenting entirely new stories and information about the death industry and death rituals world wide. I once leant my copy of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes to a student of mine, and she said in a thank you note when she returned it: "I ❤ death now." Upon reading From Here To Eternity, you too will ❤ death.

Thought-provoking and entertaining

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witty, engaging story respectfully crafted from the experiences of a Western funeral director discovering, first hand, the death rituals of other cultures. my favourite of Doughty's works. Thankyou for such a meaningful recording. would recommend to a friend in a heartbeat.

epilogue of dreams

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