Caitlin Doughty's first book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes [http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2015/06/smoke-gets-in-your-eyes-and-other.html] dealt with her first job out of college working at a crematorium. It seems as though she had found her calling because she went back to school to learn the funeral sciences. Now she has her own nonprofit funeral home, Undertaking L.A.
In this book, she explores what people do with dead bodies. For example, villages in the area of Toraja in Indonesia, the families mummify or if they can afford it embalm the bodies of the loved ones of their family and then keep them in the house for an indeterminate amount of time (it could be months or years) until the ceremony ma'nene is held and they get their own resting place. At this ma'nene animals are sacrificed in order that their soul can be released. This doesn't mean that they don't bring them back out for celebrations and family get-togethers.
In Japan, the crematory rate is 99.9%. Until the current Emperor, the Emperors have all chosen a burial. They do have places where you can place your bones. In Japan, they see ashes as being unclean and they only keep the bones, which is done by the family at the crematorium by using chopsticks to place them in the urn. At Ruriden columbarium they have slots for your bones with Buddhas in front that light up. The entire place changes colors according to the season by the use of lights.
She also encountered a corpse hotel in Japan where different rooms are set up to your different tastes and needs. Some have showers, kitchens, and mats for people to sleep on which if you have out of town family members there for the funeral this would be a place to put them. You can have the room for up to four days. They will bring the corpse into the room whenever you want. At American funerals, you barely get to spend any time with the beloved before they are buried. In Japan, you get to truly say goodbye.
Doughty explores some ways in America that people are trying as means of disposing of your corpse after death. She also examines practices in Mexico dealing with Dios de los Muertos, in Spain where they keep the corpses behind glass and Bolivia where they have the belief in the natitas, the skulls of the dead who help others with problems they might have. This book was utterly fascinating and incredibly interesting. It will even give you ideas about what to do with your own body after its gone. It did for me. This book was just as good as her last book. I highly recommend it.
Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Here-Eternity-Traveling-World-Death/dp/0393249891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519046849&sr=8-1&keywords=from+here+to+eternity+caitlin+doughty&dpID=51dk%252BlELWfL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
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