Book Club

Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery's book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel (unless otherwise noted), 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.

This month's selection is The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein

Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery's book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel (unless otherwise noted), 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.

This month's selection is The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic by Wade Davis

Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery's book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel (unless otherwise noted), 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 (pictured here with Doug Graves, Congressional Cemetery's mascot and NOT a real skeleton!).

Selection: The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America's Wildlands By: Jon Billman From GoodReads.com: For readers of Jon Krakauer and Douglas Preston, the critically acclaimed author and journalist Jon Billman's fascinating, in-depth look at people who vanish in the wilderness without a trace and those eccentric, determined characters who try to find them. These [...]

Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery's book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel (unless otherwise noted), 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 (pictured here with Doug Graves, Congressional Cemetery's mascot and NOT a real skeleton!).

Selection: The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost By: Peter Manseau From GoodReads.com: A story of faith and fraud in post–Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead. In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn [...]