Social Science : Death & Dying

Clothing, jewelry, animal remains, ceramics, coins, and weaponry are among the artifacts that have been discovered in graves in Gaul dating from the fifth to eighth century. Those who have unearthed them, from the middle ages to the present, have speculated widely on their meaning. more...

Price: $15.95

The strange, startling, disturbing, and utterly fascinating stories behind the world’s most notorious celebrity deaths. Death sells. Just about everyone slows down upon passing the scene of a car accident, wanting to look but ashamed of their grim fascination with another’s unfortunate end. And when a public figure bites the dust, the fascination increases tenfold. From historical figures like Attila the Hun and Sir Walter Raleigh to contemporary names like River Phoenix and Anna Nicole Smith, the deaths of the rich and famous provoke endless speculation and tabloid fodder. Anyone can recall where they were when Princess Diana died, even if they are unable to remember who was president at the time. Noted celebrity journalist Alan W. Petrucelli has covered some of the world’s most famous people— some right until their deaths. In Morbid Curiosity , he presents the most disturbing, unexpected, occasionally humorous, and often outright appalling details of the final exits of the rich and powerful. more...

Price: $13.95

What seems like closure might be something more, as Catherine Russell shows us in this book about death in narrative cinema since the 1950s. Analyzing the structural importance of death in narrative endings, as well as the thematics of loss and redemption, Russell identifies mortality as a valuable critical tool for understanding the cinema of the second half of the twentieth century. Her work includes close textual readings of films by Fritz Lang, Wim Wenders, Oshima Nagisa, Jean-Luc Godard, and Robert Altman, among others. more...

Price: $72.00

In this sweeping tour of New Jersey’s burial sites from the seventeenth century through the dawn of the twenty-first, readers will discover how headstones are much more than place markers for the deceased. From the earliest memorials that were once used by Native Americans, to some of the elaborate structures of the present day, historians Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied use grave markers to tell an off-beat account of New Jersey’s history that is both fascinating and unique. In detailed descriptions, the authors explain what cemeteries and their gravemarkers say about different individuals and the communities in which they lived. Images that decorate seventeenth-century headstones, such as skulls, hourglasses, and crossed bones, speak to the brevity of life in the colonial world. Eighteenth-century cemeteries reflect the distinctive cultures that sprang up in the state at that time, ranging from the unadorned marble markers used by Quakers, to rich brown sandstone used by settlers in the central and northern regions of New Jersey. By the Victorian era, markers were transformed into elaborate monuments and mausoleums as New Jerseyans honored their dead relatives with a cavalcade of obelisks, pillars, ornate statuary, and sculpture. Today’s tombstones continue to mirror New Jersey society. A life-sized Mercedes Benz headstone in a Linden cemetery, for example, reflects the materialism of the new millennium. Also considered are modern-day novelties such as pet cemeteries and what they mean for modern culture. Having visited more than 900 state burial grounds, and interviewed dozens of owners of monument companies, this richly illustrated book is essential reading for history buffs and indeed anyone who has ever wandered inquisitively through their local cemeteries. more...

Price: $22.00

Two years after the best-selling Arthur & George, Julian Barnes gives us a memoir on mortality that touches on faith and science and family as well as a rich array of exemplary figures who over the centuries have confronted the same questions he now poses about the most basic fact of life: its inevitable extinction. more...

Price: $15.00