Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty (Paperback, 2015)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematorium by Caitlin Doughty From her very first day at Westwind Cremation & Burial, twenty-three-year-old Caitlin Doughty threw herself into the gruesome daily tasks of her curious new profession. From caring for bodies of all shapes and sizes, picking up corpses from the hospital morgue, sweeping ashes from the cremation machines (sometimes onto her clothes) and learning to deal with mourning families, Caitlin comes face-to-face with the very thing we go to great lengths to avoid thinking about - death. But as she started to wonder about the lives of those she cremated, and found herself confounded by people's erratic reactions to death, Caitlin's feelings began to evolve in unexpected ways. Now a licensed mortician, Caitlin tells the story of her fumbling apprenticeship with the dead. Exploring our death rituals - and those of other cultures - she pleads the case for healthier attitudes around death and dying. Full of bizarre encounters, gallows humour and vivid characters (both living and very dead), this illuminating account makes this otherwise terrifying subject urgent and fascinating. Format: Paperback | 272 pages Dimensions (cm): 20.4 x 13.5 x 2.1 | 380g - Publication Date: 01 Jun 2015 Publisher: Canongate Books Publication City/Country: Edinburgh, United Kingdom Language: English ISBN10: 1782111034 ISBN13: 9781782111030 Condition: Good A book that has been read but is in good condition. Very minimal damage to the cover including very minor, tiny, scuff marks along the edges, but no holes or tears. All pages are undamaged with no creasing or tearing, no pencil underlining of text, no highlighting of text and no writing in margins. No missing pages.