This was an entertaining and informative read. I found myself sharing what I learned from this book with those around me. I recommend it to fans of good and highly readable non-fiction.

This was the perfect book for me, and I will definitely reread this book. If you love history and fascination with the macabre, this is for you. Todd Harra made it fun to read, unlike reading a history textbook. I can't wait to read more from Todd Harra.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and give my honest review

I found this book interesting, mainly because the business of death is ALWAYS evolving, and the funerals that we are used to today will be a thing of the very distant past. As we've continued working with decomposition and composting living materials to repurpose dead items into energy and fuel, that's how I want to be disposed of. The comprehensive history, itemized throughout the decades, was excellent when considering funerals' purposes.

This felt like a "dark tourism" experience of reading. Who knew a book about American funerals could be so intriguing and entertaining. I found myself interested in a topic I hadn't much thought about before and wanting to know more. Steeped with cultural history and interesting facts, this novel enlightens the reader on the ceremonial practices and traditions of funerals throughout history.

I've read a lot of books detailing funerary practices over the last few years, and somehow they never get old. Some are humorous, some are philosophical; this one manages to be both informative and entertaining while still being respectful.

Detailing the history of all things funeral from the Ancient Egyptians through the present day, in Last Rites Todd Hara covers famous funerals, mourning wear, hearses, coffins, cremations, gravedigging, graverobbing, things legal and less so, and more, all with a good sense for storytelling and a sort of familial sense of awe and appreciation, having been born into a mortuary family that has been doing this particular work for a very long time.

This will definitely go up there among my favorite books on this particular topic.

While some may find the topic a bit morbid, funerals are a part of life sooner or later. I found it fascinating to read the history of funerals and uncover the why behind how funeral customs came to be. I knew a bit about how the Civil War changed the way people handled the dead, but the book went further in depth. Morbid or not, it is a fact of life, and this book was very interesting!

This book was a very informative look at the history of not only different customs surrounding death, but also the funeral and burial process in the US. A lot of facts from a clearly educated author, only wish there were more personal stories interwoven to break up the sheer amount of facts.

This book is exhaustive explanation of the funeral process from the time of the Egyptians to present day. It explains how funerals we know have evolved over time, with the advent of embalming, coffins to caskets to the reasons behind the changes.
If you ever wondered why we have vaults, or cemeteries, or funerals in a funeral home, this is the book for you.
It does not delve to deeply in the process of embalming other than to explain the results thru the years as new methods developed, so it is not a gruesome read, although one might find some historic practices to be appalling in this day and age…
There is also a bunch of information on famous funerals, President Lincoln for one. I found it quite remarkable.
Tastefully done and I highly recommend.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me this ARC.

Thank you to the author, Sounds True Publishing and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fascinating look at the history of funerary customs, with an emphasis on the way of doing things in the United States. To get there however, the author's account ranges from ancient Egyptian mummification to Roman rites, Indian cremation, Victorian England, and Civil War battlefields. This is definitely not a book for the squeamish, as there are very frank accounts of sometimes brutal practices, customs and traditions throughout history. At times the author got a bit too enamored by details, and the book read more like a reference text or thesis for an audience of insiders rather than a non-fiction book which presumably was intended for a wider audience.

Who knew reading about death could be so much fun?!

I absolutely loved this book. I learned so many fascinating things about the dismal arts. How Lincoln’s death changed traditions relating to flower tributes and embalming. What preceded the shift from inhumation to cremation. How mourning has changed over time. The privatisation of funerals. Mourning gloves. Mourning gifts. Mourning jewellery. How war brought about “practical” mourning. Hearse design. Post-mortem photographs. The “coffin-torpedo”. Taphephobia. This book covers so much and explores everything in a way that made me want to keep delving deeper.

I discovered that all of the books I read about Ancient Egyptians as a child omitted some things. Like the mythology of the five children of Nut (the goddess of night). It’s the decidedly messed up story of the first mummy. Or how, according to Herodotus, when a “beautiful woman or the wife of a wealthy man” died, their body was left to decompose for three of four days before summoning the kher-heb (high priest) … to prevent necrophilia.

I decided that while I could see myself as a thanatologist, I won’t be applying for any dissector or beadle positions any time soon. The job of a dissector in Ancient Egypt was to make the incision for evisceration but as soon as they were done they’d be chased by their coworkers and stoned because they’d defiled the body. Beadles were routinely beaten by family members of the deceased as they went about their job of retrieving the bodies of hanged criminals so barber surgeons could dissect them.

I had to look up the Last Things website, where designer Chuck Lakin provides free blueprints for six coffins you can build yourself. Two of the six can be used as furniture while your heart is still beating. One is a bookcase coffin!!!

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I started this book. Learning about death rituals and how they’ve changed over time sounded really interesting but I wondered if the delivery would be dry and boring. It was anything but.

This book took me a lot longer to read than I’d anticipated because I kept stopping when I found something I couldn’t keep to myself so I could read it to whoever was nearby.

I never expected to be in a position to say ‘I read the most wonderful book about death’, but here we are. I read the most wonderful book about death!

“Memento mori”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sounds True for the opportunity to read this book.

Last Rites covers an always intriguing subject, death. Not only death, but mourning traditions and other funerary details. There is a lot of history in this book, but not all of.it is about death exactly. It tells many stories about different people and cultures and how certain traditions began. This book was really interesting to followmalong with all the history and traditions and was really well-written.

Do you want some new go-to fun facts? Look no further, this book is perfect.

Ever since reading All That Remains, Sue Black’s thoughts and knowledge on death as a forensic anthropologist, I have been fascinated by, well, the dead. Of course I love true crime, but I'm talking about the science of death and the practices surrounding it - which is why I was so excited when I received this ARC!
Harra’s book excels at making connections between ideas separated by centuries, presenting people living in ancient times as the same as us, and weaving in a huge number of unique stories into lifeless facts. Not only did I learn a lot about funerals and death in general, but this book changed my opinion on my own postmortem desires (which no other book has done haha). I had no idea such a rich history existed, let alone surrounding even the most common place practices like sending flowers to a funeral. The stories Harra weaved in between facts were shocking and just weird - I loved them.

The only thing I wish Harra included was more history about the burial history of POCs. The history presented here primarily involved white people with black people only being mentioned 2-3 times in total, and never in detail. There is a whole side of history that we are missing out on and I am desperate to learn more!

Thank you to NetGalley, Todd Harra, and Sounds True Publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honesty review!

Surprisingly a lighthearted read given the content, Last Rites explores the history of funeral rites throughout the world and what trends held fast in the US.

It was really interesting, but as some other reviewers mentioned, very detailed. And while some of the details were interesting fun facts to learn about death/funerary methods, a lot of it just got a little confusing. A lot of names, dates, places to keep track of.

One of the more interesting chapters to me was chapter 9 - discussing coffin/funerary methods to prevent premature burials - but it ended with "this wasn't really prevalent/as much of a concern in the US as it was in Europe." So it felt a little bit like, well this is interesting information but if it wasn't a trend in the US, why was it included in the book?

Overall, really fascinating stuff though!

A very interesting read about contemporary American funerary practices and where they come from. Starting with the ancient Egyptians, experts in the afterlife, and ending with possible future techniques, the author explains the origin of many customs. Why do we wear black? When did we start using flowers? Where did embalming come from? All these questions are answered in detail. And that was my problem with this book: too much detail, too many dates, names and locations. I was very interested in Lincoln’s funeral, but not as much in every city in which he had a showing. Maybe a little less data would have made it more readable. It was still very informative.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Sounds True!

In Last Rights We learned about how embalming benefited President Lincoln when his son Willy passed away. We also learn about the presidents own embalming and details about his funeral that I had never read anywhere before. We also find out about funeral photography coffin making ET see in the best thing I found about last rites by Todd Hera is that almost every topic he touched on he gave the name of a book and an author in case she wanted to read more. I love historical nonfiction so I have to say I appreciated that. This book is a tad bit morbid, but oh so interesting. Please forgive any errors as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own. This book was given to me by net Galli and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A comprehensive, engrossing, and superbly educational walk through history that brings you up to speed on all of the currently-observable customs related to death/funerals, plus many that are no longer as popular (e.g. new technologies were developed, or that particular civilization no longer exists).

It's wild to discover where things like the modern version of embalming took hold, and even more so to realize that things like, say, funeral homes didn't exist until so very recently. Puts a ton into context, especially in the final chapter, which outlines current and presumed-future trends.

Not a rough read--truth be told, it's as friendly of a journey through the subject as you'd hope, considering the dense amount of information coming at you.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sounds True for the advance read.

Last Rites explores the touchy topic of American funerary practices and how they evolved through time. Working through trickled down historical influences like Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire, Hara highlights thousands of years of history that led up the current trends in funerals and ceremonies and expands on the future of where they could go from here. The research that went into this book is incredible and it was an informative, though dense and slightly jumbled, read. A definite for anyone with a curiosity in death practices

Thanks to NetGalley and Sounds True publishing for giving me this ARC to review!

I have always been fascinated about death and funerals – when I was in high school, I was early accepted to the McCallister Academy of Mortuary Science. The only thing that stopped me from attending was an interaction between me and a funeral director (who was the only woman in my town to own her own business) I approached her for some information and offered to work there, like an externship. I would set up the rooms, clean, etc., and watch an embalming or two just to see what the business was really like. She was quite rude and told me not to bother going to school, since I didn’t have “family in the business” I would never make it. She went on to say that no one would hire me because I was an outsider, not part of a funerary family. I was young and I took her words to heart and chose a different career path. It’s ironic that now, most funeral homes are owned by a corporate entity and employ staff with all kinds of backgrounds…family “in the business” is no longer an issue.
So, back to LAST RITES. The author takes us through the history of everything funerary, from early funeral customs during Egyptian times to the present as well as embalming, mourning customs, burial procedures (especially interesting is the “alarms” that bodies were buried with, in case the person inside the coffin was not truly dead (!), and superstitions surrounding death and dying. There is enough substance for both serious students and curious laypeople to enjoy. There is the occasional yucky detail but not enough to make the book a struggle to read.
The author made this book very information-dense; it can be overwhelming if you choose to read it over the course of a few hours. I preferred to limit my intake to 30-45 minutes, as it helped me to really absorb the details and/or look up more information on a subject that I wanted to learn more about. There are footnotes at the end of every chapter, which helped me to gain a new level of understanding to what was written in the body of the book.
What I liked most about LAST RITES is that there were enough nuggets there to complement the knowledge I had already. The author gives a lot of detail and examples to make the book a multi-layered approach towards death customs and the like. At times it did read like a textbook, but the information needed to be written in such a way to include the level of detail I mentioned above. The author’s style makes it easy to read, which is a blessing considering the ultra-serious subject matter. The United States perpetuates the avoidance of death and dying, which is a shame considering everyone has to deal with it sooner or later. Perhaps LAST RITES will help shed some light on the history of this long-standing profession and help people make informed end-of-life decisions.

I think I can say the cover is quite distinctive as it is soil and a shape of a coffin on the front of the book and the title is Last Rites.

First of this book is talking about American burial rituals, some of which were adopted from other places and races of people. The one thing the majority of funerals all have in common are the death, being embalmed, there’s a public notification of some sort and there is a wake.

The book begins way back in the history of burial rituals, when everything was done at home by the family of the deceased. The body would be washed by the family and dressed, wrapped, and usually buried on family land somewhere. The book explains the superstitions and nightmares people had, about being buried alive and actually cover a couple of instances were this was very narrowly avoided! Hence the creation of some pretty weird contraptions to enable a person buried alive to signal to those above ground that they were alive!

I did learn some interesting facts whilst reading the book, for example Colonel John Jacob Aster & his wife refusing life preservers whilst on the Titanic, so sure it would never sink. Fortunately, Mrs Aster was put on a lifeboat. Mr Aster, however ended up in the freezing water when the Titanic sank. It was days later his body was found by a boat that had been “pressed into service” as a funeral boat. They retrieved Mr Aster from the sea and actually embalmed his body whilst on the journey to Halifax.

Another revelation in the book was about funeral flowers, obviously years ago they were placed around the deceased to help with the smell of the body. These days they are more of a gift or a token of love to the deceased. A favourite floral tribute is the “Gates Ajar” or as I know it to be called in more modern terms the “Gates Of Heaven”. I thought the whole reasoning about this floral arrangement being to represent the deceased passing through the gates to heaven. I hadn’t known the reason why the “gates” were always left slightly open, so the deceased could slip out of heaven and visit their loved ones. This floral tribute is a very popular in my family.

Another section of the book went over the traditions of mourning dress which became popular in the Victorian era. Nowadays of course people wear dark clothes, a colour the deceased loved or perhaps the football or rugby colours the deceased love one supported.
I vaguely remember hearing about the covering of mirrors and my family always observe the keeping the curtains closed until after the funeral.

The book explained how attitudes have changed from burial being the only option to cremation becoming more popular. I know in my own family it is a combined thing, as in, the deceased is cremated and then we bury their ashes. It seems there are so many options these days that almost any goes.

I found the book an interesting read, though at times it felt a little overly repetitive and very serious. I know it is dealing with a very serious subject, but I don’t know how else to explain it. In parts it felt very much like a reference or study book. I was expecting more on the traditions and customs as opposed to the deaths of famous people, and the military etc. I wanted more about the floral tributes and how different races/religions dealt with funerals. What happened if you could afford to pay an undertaker/funeral director. I guess I am trying to say I wanted the book to be even more than it was. I also expected more about the different roles from with in the funeral industry. For example, why six pallbearers are used, when did morticians become popular and how did a person become one. The book was very much historical reference of funerals and how things came to be that way rather than it being more on the role of the Funeral Home workers and the history of what they do and why.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were that it had for the most part been an interesting read. I found it fascinating who certain rituals have been popular, changed, then sort of come back around again.

Summing up I really liked the different facts though sometimes the reference links etc made it feel like a textbook.

Last Rites explores the touchy topic of American funerary practices and how they evolved through time. Working through trickled down historical influences like Ancient Egypt and the Roman Empire, Hara highlights thousands of years of history that led up the current trends in funerals and ceremonies and expands on the future of where they could go from here. The research that went into this book is incredible and it was an informative, though dense and slightly jumbled, read. A definite for anyone with a curiosity in death practices.