Beautiful and informative -- even I didn't know about all the symbolism behind those stereotypical ornaments and figures, and I LOVE cemeteries. I was also happy about the vast collection of European cemeteries included. What could have been improved on was the prose, which I thought did not exactly "flow" some of the time. Then again, I liked that this was slightly "wordy" instead of just a book of pictures.

***** I have received and read an e - ARC from NetGalley in exchange for giving my honest feedback. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.*****

An interesting read and some great pictures.

Overall, I didn’t really connect with the material as much as I have with other books on the subject. It feels like the author only briefly touched the information rather than diving as deep as I would have liked.

An interesting book which could have an eclectic audience. A massive tome detailing various cemetaries and headstones and basically anything death related. I would say it is an interesting coffee table book because of the fabulous photography, however I found the narrative a bit like the authors' personal travelogue, which is a little short on detail outside of her own interests. I would have liked more detail on areas other than Europe as the South American, African and Caribbean cultures and traditions are very interesting. In saying that, it is a beautifully presented book and will appeal to many, I'm sure. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advance copy of Cities of the Dead.

An absolute gem. Beautiful photography and diverse settings are a treat for the eyes. This is a lovely look at the world's most beautiful places of burial and some of their residents. It's heavy on the design and history of the place itself, rather than a topical look at the history of the region or a salaciously dark look at it's residents. A reader heading in for a dark and spooky book might be disappointed, this book removes the spook and focuses on the locations and their inception more than the ghosts that may lie there.

Yolanda Zappaterra’s Cities of the Dead: The World's Most Beautiful Cemeteries is a fascinating and educational book. I enjoyed the pretty and nostalgic pictures and I liked reading about the histories and architecture of these interesting cemeteries. However, I wish the book was better organised and there was less of a disparity in the locations presented.

This book is divided into regions: The Americas; Europe; and Asia, Oceania, and Africa. Many famous cemeteries are included like Lafayette Cemetery No. One in New Orleans, Al-Qarafa in Cairo, Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, Père Lachaise in Paris, and Highgate Cemetery in London. Each cemetery featured has its own entry which includes at least one picture and examines its history, architectural features, and famous residents. Most of the entries are brief and encompass one or two pages. However, there are a few of the more famous sites whose write ups are slightly lengthier and feature more pictures. There is also a great section on symbolism in cemeteries. This informative chapter briefly describes the meanings and histories behind items like cherubs, candles, and boats that are often found in cemeteries.

This book is so original and interesting! I learned so much about many different countries, and cultures. Cemeteries are undoubtedly places of sadness, nostalgia, and tragedy. They are an indelible and important record of humanity, reveal a multitude of stories, and–as this book shows–can be quite beautiful. I loved seeing the Merry Cemetery in Romania which is filled with colourful folk art depicting stories about the deceased. It is truly a unique and endearing tradition and tribute. The journey through the iconic Père Lachaise reflects a swathe of famous Western figures like Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and Frédéric Chopin. I am in awe of the lovely Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo where people can enjoy the beautiful springtime Sakura. Here, you can also find the grave of the famous dog Hachiko. His adorable gravesite is covered in doggie themed gifts left by adoring fans.

While this book is extremely educational and well-researched, Zapaterra’s writing is sadly quite dry and can be repetitive. The book also could have been better organised. I would have liked to see a better distribution of information as some cemeteries have a lot of pictures and information while other entries are woefully succinct. The Europe chapter is very large and so many English cemeteries are included that I thought that I was touring every cemetery that England has to offer! In comparison, the Asia, Oceania and Africa chapter is quite sad with not many entries. Furthermore, while I do appreciate the abundance of wonderfully composed and evocative pictures, the book would have benefited from a more meaningful selection of images.




⚰️⚰️⚰️1/2 out of 5 coffins!

Yolanda Zappaterra's Cities of the Dead takes us on a world tour of beautiful and fascinating cemeteries, combining interesting and well-researched texts with beautiful photography. This book would make a great gift for someone interested in morbid history or who can see the beauty in places like cemeteries, crypts, and memorial sites. It's more of a coffee-table book to be browsed through than a book to be read cover to cover, so keep that in mind.
The book could have been laid-out better, as there was frequently a disconnect between what was being discussed in the text and what was being shown on the page. There was also quite a bit of repetition in certain areas that could have been culled with a more effective editor.

This was such an interesting read. I have always had a morbid fascination with graveyards and cemetaries and wondered about the people buried there and the lifes and loved ones they left behind. I found it so introguing to read and look at the pictures.

Cities of The Dead: The World's Most beautiful Cemeteries
by Yolanda Zappaterra
Francis Lincoln Press
***** ( 5 stars)

A thoroughly engrossing and awesome book about cemeteries from around the world. Every cemetery included were chosedn for its physical allure, their global and historical or cultural period and the famous people buried there. Each has a short history of its grounds, where it is located and date and significan facts surrounding it.
The photographs depict the beauty and wonder, as well as the aura of darkness, each of these cemeteries have.
Amazing book, gorgeous photos and intriging stories. This is a must read.
Thanks to #netgalley for sending this e-book ARC for review.
#CitiesofTheDead

Cities of the Dead: The World's Most Beautiful Cemeteries by Yolanda Zappaterra is a nonfiction book and collection of photography. Readers will discover the fascinating stories of the world’s most beautiful cemeteries, featuring spectacular photography, unique histories and famous residents. The book invites readers on a tour of memorial sites, ranging from monastic settlements to grand cathedrals, Shinto shrines to Gothic chapels, tombs and crypts. Enjoy tales of myths and monsters, grave-robbers, pilgrimages, spiritual retreats, remembrance and community. Marvel in cemeteries with a hundred thousand to a handful of graves which feature famous headstones, weeping angels, ocean views, woodlands, thousands of glowing lanterns and a tomb of poets. From London's famous Highgate Cemetery, which houses famous names from Karl Marx to Malcolm McLaren, George Eliot to Christina Rosetti, to Hawaii's breathtaking Valley of the Temples, this book spans the globe to bring you the most fascinating, intriguing and evocative cemeteries across cultures and continents. Together with the photographs, the stories behind these notable burial sites bring these sanctuaries to life, detailing the features that make them special, highlighting both similarities and differences between time periods, religions and cultures, and showing how cemeteries are about and for the living as much as the dead.


Cities of the Dead is a fascinating read and visually captivating. I thought the information provided for each site was well researched and written, with just enough information to give readers an understanding of the location, and perhaps inspire some further research for the locations that really speak to them. I have to admit that I was much more interested in the photography, but that is more on my personal preference and visual nature than any lack on the author's part. It was nice to see the beauty ad dignity of these locations, rather than the focus of dark and spooky that I mostly see particularly this time of year. The serenity and magnitude of some of the locations was interesting and I liked the variety of locations and seasons and time of day in which the pictures seemed to be taken. I found some of the images sad, like the cramped crowd of tombstones of Beth-Chaim in Prague, and some of the less well tended expanses, however other locations seems so restful and carefully tended that they exude peace. The contrasts of how history and people shape these things is important, and too often forgotten. I like that the author included a guide to the symbolism in cemeteries, visitor information on the featured locations, an index and the full list of photograph credits. These important details too often are lost in the process, and I love digging into these kids of details at the end of a nonfiction book. I think my only complaint is that the number of photographs per cemetery seemed a bit uneven, some locations only had one while others had several pages. I understand that this is partially because of image availability and cemetery size and accessibility, but it still bothered me in the end.

I’m the kind of person who, when I travel or visit different cities or states, I always pull up Google Maps before I arrive and research whether or not there are any cemeteries nearby that are of note, either because of their residents or because of their architecture or landscaping. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve been fascinated with cemeteries and their histories for quite a while—whether it’s the feeling of visiting a deceased favorite author’s grave and feeling like you’re there in spirit with him/her somehow, or marveling at ornate cemetery statues, or wondering how the heck a stunning, gleaming mausoleum was made to appear as somber but beautiful as it is, there’s so many things in graveyards and cemeteries to dwell upon.

So, as a pretty big taphophile, I was extremely excited to get my hands on a copy of this—based on the description alone, I thought it would have everything I’m interested in regarding the worlds of cemeteries and graveyards. It’s a coffee table-style book with large photographs and histories of each cemetery represented within, and the synopsis promised gorgeous photos and sprawling stories of each unique final resting place, something every cemetery admirer loves to hear.

However, as I started to read the book, I discovered it wasn’t quite what the cover promised it to be—it’s instead a rather in-depth history and description of each cemetery/graveyard, most complete with who started it, why it was started, the kind of architectural style its founders chose and why, and then an overview of its famous or noteworthy residents. Zappaterra will oftentimes go on mini-tangents about certain monuments or styles or singular graves in a specific cemetery, and we learn a lot about them in a very cogent, detailed manner. Which, to an extent, is great, but that’s also where the problem with this book lies—there’s not enough photos.

This book suffers under the weight of ‘telling and not showing,’ that classic piece of advice all writers are given in creative writing classes. Here, it’s applied differently than fiction from the get-go, but the point of it's still the same—I don’t just want these unique features and tombstones and styles described to me for a full paragraph with text alone. I want that description and detail along with photos actually showing me what’s being described together on the page. There were so many times where I had to pause what I was reading, pull my phone out, and go onto Google and search for what the author was describing that it eventually interrupted the overall flow of the book itself, and I found myself growing a little frustrated.

I struggle to understand what the goal of this book was accordingly—was it supposed to be a detailed but surface-level historical introduction to several notable cemeteries and graveyards from around the world with a few pictures thrown in here and there, or was it supposed to be a coffee table book that one could set out and let his/her/their relatives or friends browse through while lounging about on a lazy Sunday or during halftime of a football game? If it was supposed to be the former, the styling, formatting, and marketing for the book don’t make sense, as it’s essentially marketed as a travel- and photography-based book about the world’s most beautiful cemeteries, yet each cemetery only gets about two or three photos, with a handful getting maybe two or three more (even more confounding is the fact that almost none of the photos appear to be actually taken by the author herself, despite the introduction setting the scene in the sense where she talks about traveling to many of the cemeteries listed within). If it was supposed to be the latter, the book would’ve benefitted from cutting down on some of the descriptions and histories of the cemeteries and instead focusing more on adding ten to twenty photos per cemetery, with little details about them specifically in the style of captions, and a basic history/architecture style guide could’ve been included at the introduction of each cemetery.

The book struggles to understand what it’s supposed to be, but it is very well written. It’s dense, sometimes to the point where I found myself wondering why I was reading so much about certain monuments or crypts or specific styles set within the cemetery without being able to physically see said things, but it succeeds in at least allowing taphophiles to learn the basics about some of the world’s most beautiful cemeteries, with the information accompanied by a few gorgeous photographs for each site.

Thanks to NetGalley, Quarto Publishing Group, and Yolanda Zappaterra for the digital ARC of Cities of the Dead in exchange for an honest review.

Hauntingly beautiful. I would never have thought to find beauty in a cemetery but it’s there. It’s amazing how old some of the places are.

Cities of the Dead by Yolanda Zappaterra would make a beautiful coffee table book or gift for any aspiring taphophile. The images are gorgeously inviting and seemingly representative of the cemeteries. The book is organized into The Americas, Europe, and Asia, Oceania, & Africa. There is also a shirt section on symbolism and visitor information. For each cemetery, Zappaterra gives an overview of the place along with a brief history sharing some of the famous or infamous graves. I appreciated the author’s personal commentary about struggling to select *the* most beautiful cemetery in a city with several options. I also enjoyed some of the more obscure history including inventors that are not frequently recognized.

One of the most unique books I've had the pleasure of reading! You'd think a book about cemeteries would be a hard sell, but not in this instance. Instead, it's an interesting trip around the world to varied and beautiful cemeteries that would truly be cool places to visit. The images of each cemetery were gorgeous and mysterious at the same time. My personal favorite: the Mount of Olives cemetery. Knowing how long it has existed, and its importance to religious history, it was amazing to see images of it. While off the usual path of what is often read, this book is definitely worth being an exception to the usual. It's a wonderful way to experience something new in your literary journey.

Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing for this advanced review copy, which I voluntarily read. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Gorgeous pictures and great informational text on interesting cemeteries around the world. Perfect for lovers of the macabre and dark travellers.

This was the perfect coffee table book! Great for casually flicking through and learning about different cementaries around the world. I do wish there had been more photos included as for some there was only one or two which didn't give me a good sense of them. Bonus point though for featuring my favourite cementary that I grow up by! I also really liked the key to common headstones symbols in the back. That really added to my reading experience and is something I would flick to and reference again.
Overall, a great book for introducing Taphophilia to people but not as in depth as I wanted.

I enjoyed reading the book as well as looking at the beautiful pictures of the cemeteries around the world. It was great to read the history and the story each cemetery has to tell. Beautifully written!

This beautifully illustrated books gives a sneak peak into the cities of the dead around the globe. From cemeteries in major cities, to historical sites like Iona Island and the Mount of Olives. The perfect gothic vibes for the spooky season.

As someone who loves old cemeteries, this book was incredible. Not just photos but fascinating history to accompany them. I learned so much and now I want to travel to so many more places.

This book covers how various how in previous times and the present civilisation has dealt with burial and death. I knew nothing about the catacombs beneath the Vatican and found this part the most interesting. A great read to help us prepare for our inevitable end and the end of others close to us.
Thank You to Net Gallery for this Insightful Book.

A book of beautiful cemeteries around the world although most are in the Americas and Europe. (The third section, the rest of the world is much shorter). There’s lots of interesting facts about architecture, history and any famous inhabitants and of course the photography is spectacular.