Download or read book Bodies in Motion and at Rest On Metaphor and Mortality written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001-06-17 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year Masterful essays that illuminate not only how we die but also how we live. Thomas Lynch, poet, funeral director, and author of the highly praised The Undertaking, winner of an American Book Award and finalist for the National Book Award, continues to examine the relations between the "literary and mortuary arts."

Download or read book The Undertaking Life Studies from the Dismal Trade written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-03-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Award Finalist "One of the most life-affirming books I have read in a long time…brims with humanity, irreverence, and invigorating candor." —Tom Vanderbilt "Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople." So opens this singular and wise testimony. Like all poets, inspired by death, Thomas Lynch is, unlike others, also hired to bury the dead or to cremate them and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director. In the conduct of these duties he has kept his eyes open, his ear tuned to the indispensable vernaculars of love and grief. In these twelve pieces his is the voice of both witness and functionary. Here, Lynch, poet to the dying, names the hurts and whispers the condolences and shapes the questions posed by this familiar mystery. So here is homage to parents who have died and to children who shouldn't have. Here are golfers tripping over grave markers, gourmands and hypochondriacs, lovers and suicides. These are the lessons for life our mortality teaches us.

Download or read book The Depositions New and Selected Essays on Being and Ceasing to Be written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Alan Ball “Elegant, respectful and refreshingly funny.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice For nearly four decades, poet, essayist, and small-town funeral director Thomas Lynch has probed relations between the literary and mortuary arts with a signature blend of memoir, meditation, gallows humor, and poetic precision. The Depositions offers a wry and compassionate selection from Lynch’s four previous collections of nonfiction, along with new essays shaped by the press of the author’s own mortality.

Download or read book Booking Passage We Irish and Americans written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006-06-17 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A good read even for those who have not the least ancestral or national bias—for those who desire civilized entertainment along with brilliant narrative." —Seattle Times In thirty-five years and dozens of return trips to Ireland, Thomas Lynch has found a template for the larger world inside the small one, the planet in the local parish. Part memoir, part cultural study, Booking Passage is a brilliant, often comedic guidebook for those "fellow travelers, fellow pilgrims" making their way through the complexities of their own lives and times.

Download or read book The Good Funeral written by Thomas G. Long and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Before long I began to understand that showing up, being there, helping in an otherwise helpless situation was made heroic by the same gravity I had sensed when I first stood in that embalming room as a boy„the presence of the dead made the presence of the living more meaningful somehow, as if it involved a basic and intuitively human duty to witness." „from Chapter 1, "How We Come to Be the Ones We Are" Two of the most authoritative voices on the funeral industry come together here in one volume to discuss the current state of the funeral. Through their different lenses„one as a preacher and one as a funeral director„Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing "the good funeral," including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between pastors and funeral directors, the tendency of modern funerals to exclude the body from the service, and the rapid growth in cremation. The book features forewords from Patrick Lynch, President of the National Funeral Directors Association, and Barbara Brown Taylor, highly praised author and preacher. It is an essential resource for funeral directors, morticians, and pastors, and anyone else with an interest in current funeral practices.

Download or read book This Republic of Suffering written by Drew Gilpin Faust and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Download or read book Whence and Whither written by Thomas Lynch and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of our most gifted writers and thinkers about death and the meaning of living comes a collection of writings about what comes next. Thomas Lynch, funeral director, poet, and author of the National Book Award finalist The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, has an uncanny knack for writing about death in ways that are never morbid, always thoughtful, often humorous, and quite moving. From his account of riding in the hearse at the funeral of poet laureate Seamus Heaney, to his recounting of the funeral for a young child in the 1800s, to his compelling essay about his own mortality, Lynch always finds ways to make sense of senseless things, as he ponders what will come next.

Download or read book Ministering to the Mourning written by Warren W. Wiersbe and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formerly titled Comforting the Bereaved, this practical, insightful guide gives direction to pastors and lay-leaders of all levels of experience. Included are recommended Scriptures to read; an explanation of the stages of grief; approaches to conducting funerals in special circumstances such as suicide, victims of crime, multiple family deaths, or when the deceased is unknown to the pastor; signs of healthy and unhealthy grief, and how to help survivors cope. This new edition contains a chapter on ministering to victims of terrorism. It is also recommended for chaplains and hospice caregivers.

Download or read book Skating with Heather Grace written by Thomas Lynch and published by Carnegie Mellon Classic Contem. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Classic Contemporary reissuing of Skating with Heather Grace by Thomas Lynch.

Download or read book Body of Work written by Christine Montross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A first-year medical student describes an anatomy class during which she studied the donated body of a cadaver dubbed "Eve," an experience that profoundly influenced her subsequent studies and understanding of the human form.

Download or read book Walking Papers Poems written by Thomas Lynch and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade's worth of poems by one of our most reliable witnesses, National Book Award finalist Thomas Lynch. In his fourth collection of poems, Thomas Lynch attends to flora, fauna, and fellow pilgrims: dead poets and living masters, a former president and his factotums, a sin-eater and inseminator. Faux-bardic and mock-epic, deft at lament and lampoon, fete and feint, Lynch's poems are powerful medicines, tonics for the long haul and home-going. from "Walking Papers" You can think of it as punctuation and maybe take some comfort from that, friend— a question mark or exclamation point— no matter, we're all sentenced to an end, the movers and the shakers, bon vivants, all ne'er-do-wells and nincompoops, savants, sage and sluggard, deft and daft alike: everyone's given their walking papers.

Download or read book Beautiful Boy written by David Sheff and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheff's story tells of his teenage son's addiction to meth, in this real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the family's gradual emergence into hope.

Download or read book Aristotle s Children written by Richard E. Rubenstein and published by HMH. This book was released on 2004-09-20 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true account of a turning point in medieval history that shaped the modern world, from “a superb storyteller” and the author of When Jesus Became God (Los Angeles Times). Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten—until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. The philosopher’s ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The rediscovery of these ancient ideas would spark riots and heresy trials, cause major upheavals in the Catholic Church—and also set the stage for today’s rift between reason and religion. Aristotle’s Children transports us back to this pivotal moment in world history, rendering the controversies of the Middle Ages lively and accessible, and allowing us to understand the philosophical ideas that are fundamental to modern thought. “A superb storyteller who breathes new life into such fascinating figures as Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Aristotle himself.” —Los Angeles Times “Rubenstein’s lively prose, his lucid insights and his crystal-clear historical analyses make this a first-rate study in the history of ideas.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book How to Ruin Everything written by George Watsky and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller "Funny, subversive, and able to excavate such brutally honest sentences that you find yourself nodding your head in wonder and recognition." —Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical Are you a sensible, universally competent individual? Are you tired of the crushing monotony of leaping gracefully from one lily pad of success to the next? Are you sick of doing everything right? In this brutally honest and humorous debut, musician and artist George Watsky chronicles the small triumphs over humiliation that make life bearable and how he has come to accept defeat as necessary to personal progress. The essays in How to Ruin Everything range from the absurd (how he became an international ivory smuggler) to the comical (his middle-school rap battle dominance) to the revelatory (his experiences with epilepsy), yet all are delivered with the type of linguistic dexterity and self-awareness that has won Watsky devoted fans across the globe. Alternately ribald and emotionally resonant, How to Ruin Everything announces a versatile writer with a promising career ahead.

Download or read book Boneyards written by Richard Bak and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of burial sites and customs in Metro Detroit and the historical and social changes behind our treatment of the dead. From the earliest burial mounds to today's simple street shrines, Boneyards: Detroit Under Ground reveals how Metro Detroiters have interred their dead and honored their memory. Author Richard Bak investigates the history of dozens of local cemeteries and also explores the cultural and business side of dying, from old-fashioned home funerals to the grave-robbing "resurrectionists" of the nineteenth century to modern funeral directors. Bak presents a mix of historic and contemporary photographs to illustrate each site or event alongside lively prose descriptions. Taken together, Bak's informative and often surprising historical snapshots span the entire metro area and three centuries of history. Boneyards visits the area's largest cemeteries--including Elmwood, Woodmere, Mount Olivet, Mount Elliott--and showcases some of their most intricate and unusual monuments. Bak also introduces readers to abandoned graveyards like William Ganong Cemetery in Westland, Millar Cemetery in Clinton Township, and Beth Olem Cemetery inside the GM Poletown Plant. Bak includes photos of some of the city's largest funerals, from those of automaker Henry Ford and orchestra conductor Ossip Gabrilovitch to civil rights icon Rosa Parks and rapper DeShaun "Proof" Holton. In addition, Bak tells the stories of the ordinary and the unclaimed in local cemeteries, along with the social changes like the creation of a "drive-through" funeral home in the 1970s, the "white flight" of interred family members from Detroit cemeteries, and the trend of local cemeteries adding graves that face Mecca to accommodate the growing Muslim population. Ultimately, Bak proves that our treatment of the dead reveals much about our culture and our values. Boneyards will be intriguing reading for Detroit historians, local residents, and anyone interested in the customs of memorializing past generations.

Download or read book Grimalkin And Other Poems written by Thomas Lynch and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poems in Grimalkin - Thomas Lynch's first publication in Britain are all concerned, in one way or another, with achieving a balance in the face of gravity. In each poem, Lynch is looking for this equilibrium between equal and opposing forces: the gravities of sex and death, love and grief - all the things that make us breathless and horizontal, mortal and memorable. By means of a wry, mordant wit, telling observation and glorious poise, we are shown the strong tensions that make us human: the forces in our nature that create, replicate, restore, renew us; and those that kill us, constrict our lives, silence us. From spirited invective to meditations on morality, from lyrics of love and desire to a corrosive flyting to his ex-wife, these poems explore an extraordinary emotional range and technical facility but, more importantly, they reveal a compassionate, wise, and genial humanity.

Download or read book The Artificial White Man written by Stanley Crouch and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2009-03-25 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this penetrating collection of original essays, legendary gadfly and esteemed critic Stanley Crouch tackles the notion on authenticity-what it is, what it isn't, and what we make of it, for good or for bad. While the question of who's the real deal and who isn't has now seeped into nearly every corner of American culture, nowhere does the idea of authenticity hold greater sway than in the realm of ethnicity. In this bracing collection of original essays, Crouch brings all his rhetorical skills to bear on this animating-and polarizing-idea, and investigates the motives behind those who present themselves as authentic, those who claim to expose the inauthentic, and what this all tells us about the state of the arts-from the vaulted halls of literary fiction to the arena of soft drink-shilling pop stars-in America today. For Crouch, this is not simply an academic exercise, but a summation of our peculiar historical moment. Living in a time in which much of the conventions that defined and limited people's futures-whether it be race, class, or sex-have been obliterated, we're both liberated from bigotries and yet-still-facing profound disillusionment. As influences come and go at breakneck speed, as traditions are remade and re-imagined, it has become hard to tell which metaphorical end is up. The result, Crouch argues, is not only a national paranoia that someone may have put something over on us-i.e. that we have too often been duped into believing that the counterfeit is authentic-but also a deep retrenchment of imagination and artistic expression, from white and black alike. As he promises in his introduction: "This book is an argument with all of that, however sympathetic it might be to the search for alternatives to our disappointments. It hopes to present, through affirmation, a new form of rebellion in our time of cosmetic dissent."