The book's tour de force is the chapter on the technicians who prepare bodies for autopsy at St Thomas's Hospital in London. It is a superlative piece of writing, one of the best essays I have read in a long time: provocative, loving and profound a b c d "Colin Morgan and Charlotte Spencer set to thrill in new supernatural BBC One drama The Living And The Dead" . Retrieved 7 August 2015. The opening line of ‘The Dead’ is an example of this method, and has been the subject of much critical analysis: Bristol-based duo The Insects were commissioned to write the score for the series. [21] The first episode features the traditional song " She Moved Through the Fair" sung by Elizabeth Fraser, plus the Anglican hymn " Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise" at the ploughman's funeral. [22] Another recurring song is "The Reaper's Ghost", [23] composed by Richard Dyer-Bennet in 1935. [24] Episodes [ edit ] No.

Campbell weaves judicious reflections on the philosophy and history of the death industry into the reportage... Never macabre... poignant... Transformative

About the contributors

In this profoundly moving and remarkable book, journalist Hayley Campbell explores society's attitudes towards death, and the impact on those who work with it every day. 'If the reason we're outsourcing this burden is because it's too much for us,' she asks, 'how do they deal with it?' Would facing death directly make us fear it less? However, it stayed with the author, led her into a kind of depression where she couldn't even work, and right up to the end of the book writes quite frequently about how this dead baby slipping under the water affected her. It got a bit wearisome. I wasn't really into the continual repetition of the author's mental state. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?

This moment suggests a fleeting encounter with his own image as others see it, and, by extension, a momentary awareness that there are other people in the world living their own lives and negotiating their own heartbreak. The epiphany that follows at the end of the story is certainly more decisive, but its lasting significance nevertheless remains ambiguous: A compassionate and compelling book. Fascinating and devastating in equal measure." —Charlie Gilmour, author of Featherhood So anyway, if you're not too squeamish and aren't the sort to shy away from things dealing with death, you might find this book interesting as well.

Introduction by Ashley Pharoah

It was interesting getting to know the people who do the jobs most of us would be unable or unwilling to do. I enjoyed (ok, maybe enjoyed isn't exactly the right verb.... appreciated perhaps?) learning about the processes performed in: preparing bodies for burial, discovering the cause of death, and using bodies to further scientific knowledge. ALL THE LIVING AND THE DEAD FROM EMBALMERS TO EXECUTIONERS, AN EXPLORATION OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE MADE DEATH THEIR LIFE'S WORK This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by At the end, as he’s lifted us into the dark poetry of Gabriel’s vision, separating our perception from the experience of the man and letting us glide unfettered in the gentle cushion of the winter night, Joyce brings us down firmly with his final phrase.