#someone i follow uses the tag library shelves and tbh that's. better than anything else ive been able to think of...

[inkmaze]

just finished this book! bc it's very american-centric, parts of it won't be helpful to those outside of it, but the rest of it is interesting and informative! [the book's description below]

Grave Matters: a journey through the modern funeral industry to a natural way of burial. by Mark Harris.

Grave matters follows 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, one that delivers a loved one to a crematory, and 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 returns.

For readers who want to follow the examples of these families and, literally, give back from the grave, appendices detail everything you need to know, from exact costs and laws to natural burial providers and their contact information.

#txt #i need. a tag for books. #someone i follow uses the tag library shelves and tbh that's. better than anything else ive been able to think of... #i can't remember who does it but if ur reading this and its u.. apologies i might steal ur tag name #death mention #t: everywhere but the ground #t: library shelves

[mermaidsirennikita]

tagged by @ohcaptainmyswancaptain

Which book has been on your shelves the longest? Well, right now I largely read on my tablet and I don’t.... want to think about what’s been there the longest because it’s probably something I should delete because I’ll never actually read it and need space BUT.  I do have a couple of old books hanging around, like a first edition of Profiles in Courage by JFK (I got it during my JFK phase for my birthday lol my parents were being thoughtful) and a third edition Gone with the Wind I got in an antique store.

What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next? Right now I’m reading They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, and I *hope* that unless something else catches my eye I’ll knock out Warcross by Marie Lu next.  I want to know if it’ll be the start of a new series for me--as much as the last book in her Young Immortals series disappointed me, I really loved the first book.

Which book does everyone like and you hated? 

I can’t say I *hate* every book by Sarah J. Maas because I read them sometimes as guilty pleasures/to make my goals but they aren’t good imo.  The first book in her Throne of Glass series is like... atrocious.  I also couldn’t even finish Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, or The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.  Like, I enjoy a lot of YA and I’m by no means a snob about it, but there are some books everyone is crazy about that I cannot... comprehend.

Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t? 

Ummmm probably The Great Gatsby. I’m more interested in the Fitzgeralds’ real lives than Scott’s fantasies.  More practically, Ali Land’s Good Me Bad Me probably won’t happen anytime soon even though it’s been on my tablet for a long time.  Also I feel like I’ll probably never actually finish the Outlander series not because it’s bad but because they’re so long.

Which books are you saving for “retirement?” 

Lol nothing, I read when the mood strikes me.

Last page: read it first or wait till the end? 

I used to read the ending first all the time--not anymore.  Now I only do it when I’m tired of how the story is going, but I want to know how it ends before I trash the book.

 Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

I only read them when I’m super interest in the author on a business level, and want to know who helped them get published tbh.

Which book character would you switch places with? 

Claire Fraser, to be frank, but minus the trauma and plus more Jamie sex.  Like.  Let’s be real.

Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

A lot of Sarah Dessen books remind me of like... various moods throughout life and perhaps my hometown.  This Lullaby reminds me a lot of who I am now, and some of the rough patches I had with my mom during her divorce.

Name a book you acquired in some interesting way. 

Lol not a book I acquired specifically, but my mom got a self-published memoir by a guy who spent a 10 years+ in prison for being a drug lord in our town after he approached her at a crab shack type restaurant.

Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

No, the only people I’ve really given books to are my mom and sisters.

Which book has been with you to the most places?

I mean, I’ve taken my tablet to nine different countries.  But while that’s the same Nook library, I’ve had to replace my tablet.  Physical books... some have followed me all over the country.  From South Carolina to Illinois, Montana, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia....

Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later? 

I don’t know...  I tried to read The Scarlet Letter in middle school only to hate it.  Read it again as a high school junior and adored it.  Most books I read for high school I was either indifferent to or loved, and that feeling hasn’t changed.  I did read Things Fall Apart in high school and hated it; I haven’t reread it and don’t know if I will, but I do see it differently and would like to reevaluate it.

What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

I found a note from someone to what I assume was their significant other, just a little love note in a used copy once.  Kind of sad.

Used or brand new?

New, baby!  Unless the used copy is super old.

Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

Look, it’s not my place to judge--but someone that prolific is usually an opiate of the masses and that’s fine.  I don’t see anything super special about his writing.  Frankly, after hearing that he included an orgy scene among 11 year olds in “It”, I have no interest in ever reading anything from him--and tbh, I was already done after 11/22/63.

Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Um, The Notebook???  Like the movie isn’t Oscar-worthy but it’s a super sweeping romance. The book is boring as shit.  I prefer P.S. I Love You the movie to the book, too.

Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid? 

Lbr, the 50 Shades movie is better than the book but it’s also pointless because it’s not like, as pornographic as the book so no one can be satisfied except people who read the book loved it and forgot how much sex was in the book compared to the movie.  I am neither of those things.

Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question? 

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater.  The Scorpio Races too.  The woman can describe some baked goods, okay?

Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take? 

Well, @ohcaptainmyswancaptain has a similar taste to me, so I pay attention when she recommends things or reblogs something about a book!   I’ve picked up some books based on other mutuals’ recommendations, and there are a few people on Goodreads whose opinions I trust.  But honestly, I follow my gut with books.

I’m gonna tag whoever wants to do this!

#books