Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is the story of Caitlin Doughty's ruminations on death and dying interspersed with her own journey from death touched little girl to licensed mortician.

My wife and I are big fans of Caitlin Doughty's Ask a Mortician series on Youtube and I bought this for my wife, who gave it to me as a reading assignment upon her completion.

Caitlin's writing has a funny yet respectful tone, much like her Youtube series. She details death practices and beliefs from around the world but the really interesting bits where about Caitlin herself. The funny tone makes a topic a lot of people find distasteful easy to digest and I kinda wish she'd try her hand at writing some crematorium based mysteries or something.

Raised in Hawaii, Caitlin saw a little girl fall from an escalator and die in a mall when she was a kid, forever changing the trajectory of her life. From there, she went from goth to crematory operator to mortuary school, pondering death the whole way.

There are darkly humorous stories, like molten fat gushing out of a cremation machine like something in a Three Stooges short, to poignant moments like Caitlin having to cremate a box of babies from the local hospital. She also pulls back the black curtain shrouding the funeral industry, an industry full of lies and pressure to upsell. Shady shit.

If you've been entertained by Caitlin's Ask a Mortician videos, this is a must read. Four out of five cremulators.

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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death is a collection of questions asked by children and their answers from Caitlin Doughty's book tours.

Until fairly recently, my wife entertained the possibility of being a funeral director. As a result, we've watched about 80% of Caitlin Doughty's Ask a Mortician videos on Youtube. I bought her all three of Caitlin's books and now I'm reading them as some sort of homework assignment.

In this volume, Caitlin addresses such topics as what happens to an astronaut's body in space, port-mortem pooping, do mummies stink, and can you be buried with a beloved pet, among other things. Caitlin addresses the topics with respect but also with her dark sense of humor, making for an entertaining read.

Any complaints? Nope. If you've been entertained by Caitlin's Ask a Mortician videos, you know what you're getting. This is class A death knowledge.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs is a good source of info for kids and necromancers alike. Four out of five caskets.

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Cryptozoology A to Z

Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras & Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature by Jerome Clark
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cryptozoology A to Z is an encyclopedia of cryptids, cryptozoologists, and things of that nature.

Not long after I first learned to read books on my own, I was super into ghosts, UFOs, and monsters, specifically Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and the like. When you're young, the world is huge and there's still room in it for dinosaurs and such. Anyway, now I'm into stuff like this for entertainment purposes, though I made my wife go with me to the Cryptozoology museum in Portland Maine and think there's a good chance there are relict populations of Tasmanian Tigers out there.

Anyway, this is breezy, fun dive into the world of Cryptozoology, detailing such characters as Tom Slick, Loren Coleman, and Ruth Harkness and creatures such as Orang Pendek, Almas, and the Mongolian Death Worm, in addition to the usual suspects like Bigfoot and Nessie. One of my favorite parts of this book is an account of the Lawndale Incident when a giant bird allegedly tried to carry off a young by in an Illinois town in 1977.

This book entertained the shit out of me, partly for nostaligic reasons and partly because there's a tiny part of me that still wants there to be mysterious creatures in far off corners of the world. My main gripe with the book is that it could have used a dose of skepticism. I've heard various accounts of how the famous Surgeon's Photo of the Loch Ness Monster was debunked in the 1970s but it was presented as fact here. The writing goes all in on the approach of most of the cryptids being presented as fact, something I don't buy into in a book written for adults. On a related note, how can someone be an expert on a creature that might not even exist?

As long as you don't take it as a serious scientific work, Cryptozoology A to Z is great for a few hours of entertainment and a brief return to childhood dreams of hunting for monsters. Three out of five stars.

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