Tombs & Tomes Book Club January (Virtual)
January 11, 2023 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
| FreeSelection:
Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries
by Greg Melville
Melville’s Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places that have mirrored the passing eras in history but have also shaped it. Cemeteries have given birth to landscape architecture and famous parks, as well as influenced architectural styles. They’ve inspired and motivated some of our greatest poets and authors—Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson. They’ve been used as political tools to shift the country’s discourse and as important symbols of the United States’ ambition and reach.
But they are changing and fading. Embalming and burial is incredibly toxic, and while cremations have just recently surpassed burials in popularity, they’re not great for the environment either. Over My Dead Body explores everything—history, sustainability, land use, and more—and what it really means to memorialize.. [more…]
Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery’s book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel, and we discuss primarily non-fiction books. Our book selections have no rhyme and reason; however, our choices tend to stray towards the macabre, as is natural for a cemetery book club.
Our very first meeting was in September 2013 and we chose to read Stiff, by Mary Roach.
It’s free to join, and mostly free to attend. For each meeting, we simply ask that you bring either a donation or a bit of food or wine to share with the group. Extra points for brownies! (when we meet in person)
Interested in learning more? Read our Blog Post about Tombs and Tomes, or request to join our Goodreads group.
Still interested? Sign up here!
Zoom Link Here!
