All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life's Work

This is a quick and fairly interesting read. I found the information about death and various death workers and their processes the most intriguing and cared less for the author's personal musings or opinions. I actually grew to find her interjections rather distracting and wanted to get back into the information and stories of the people she was interviewing.

A good intro book on the death industry

I had high expectations for this book... and it exceeded them! What I expected was an informative, well-researched, respectful, inquisitive look into a variety of deathcare avenues, and it absolutely provides. What I was pleasantly surprised to discover right from the introduction was how much the personal introspection and commentary of the author added to my own experience of learning about each type of work. I'm used to reading academic books and would otherwise be disappointed to not find more theoretical and historical approaches combined with the investigative journalism, but I was not. I've also read other pop social science books like this (on this same topic) that have gone overboard on the personal commentary to the point where they were patronizing to the people they were interviewing and the belief systems they were reporting on. I find that inexcusably insulting and off-putting. Hayley Campbell's book is the perfect blend of personal vulnerability and in-depth journalism. I would love to teach this some day.

I was sent an arc of this two years ago. Finally read it.

I liked it.
It's all about death, the history of funerals, autopsies and how we process the dead.
Fantastic and morbid.

Opinion: Great book for anyone interested in a career in death work, complete with thorough interviews of the people involved and grisly details of a day’s work. I enjoyed reading the book for the aforementioned reasons and the memoir-style did not completely put me off, however, I felt that something was missing from the book, though I cannot pinpoint what. Perhaps a couple of the chapters seem hastily written, without as much information as the rest. Overall, Campbell does a great job of capturing the stories and emotions of the individuals who have dedicated their lives to working with the dead. Synopsis: Part memoir, part journalistic book by Hayley Campbell exploring twelve different death-focused careers, ranging from funeral director to crime scene cleaner to cryonics. Each chapter features a different career and point person who Campbell interviews, detailing their personal stories of why they chose the work and how it has affected them, while also weaving in her own past experiences and fascination with death, and why she chose to explore these careers. There is a grotesque nature to this book as Campbell describes her own observations in detail. SPOILER… The chapter Love and Terror contains descriptive infant death, which is incredibly upsetting to Campbell, as she references this event in subsequent chapters.