Dear Teachers, I'm a member of a group promoting dignified and affordable funerals (one of which may be a home funeral)--The Funeral Consumers' Alliance. We are trying to get an affiliate started in Alabama, and I'm on a listserv with members from around the U.S. One of them recently wrote me asking me how to notify other professors who teach on death about his book. I haven't read it, but if any of you are interested, this is it:
Flap Copy: Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial HEADER: Ever Wonder What Happened to Dust to Dust? You Can Still Find It in Green Burial By the time Nate Fisher was laid to rest in a woodland grave sans coffin in the final season of Six Feet Under, Americans all across the country were starting to look outside the box when death came calling. Grave Matters follows a dozen such families who found in "green" burial a more natural, more economic and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor. Eschewing chemical embalming and fancy caskets, elaborate and costly funerals, they have embraced a range of natural options, new and old, that are redefining a better American way of death. Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea. He follows a family that conducts a home funeral and delivers a loved one to the crematory, another that hires a carpenter to build a pine coffin. In the morbidly fascinating tradition of Stiff, Grave Matters details the embalming process and the environmental aftermath of the standard funeral. Harris also traces the history of burial in America, from frontier cemeteries to the billion-dollar business it is today, reporting on real families who opted for more simple, natural return. For readers who want to follow their example and, literally, give back from the grave, an appendix details everything they need to know, from exact costs and laws to natural burial providers and their contact information. Mark Harris is a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. His articles and essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, E: The Environmental Magazine, Reader's Digest, and Hope. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania. Visit his Web site at: <http://www.gravematters.us/>www.gravematters.us Carolyn Pevey, Ph. D. Assistant Professor of Sociology Auburn University at Montgomery Department of Sociology and Anthropology P.O. Box 244023-4023 (special addressing required for UPS--please contact me before sending) Montgomery, AL 36124-4023 334-244-3550 [EMAIL PROTECTED] AUM is not responsible for anything in this letter, nor does it endorse any opinions expressed herein. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
