SOCIETY

"An amusing (really) account of the murderous ways of despots, slave traders, blundering royals, gladiators and assorted hordes." -New York Times Learn More

At forty-four, Tom Jokinen decided to quit his job in order to become an apprentice undertaker, setting out to ask the questions: What is the right thing to do when someone dies? Learn More

Kurt Cobain, Anne Sexton, Mark Rothko, Ernest Hemingway, Adolf Hitler . . . all famous, some rich and powerful, some beloved, some abhorred. But when life and circumstance got to be too much, each headed for the exit door. Learn More

Michelle Williams is young and attractive, with close family ties, a busy social life . . . and an unusual occupation. When she impulsively applies to be a mortuary technician and is offered the position, she has no idea that her decision to accept will be one of the most momentous of her life. “What I didn’t realize then,” she writes, “was that I was about to start one of the most amazing jobs you can do.” Learn More

Erik Ruhling assembles an unmatched array of torture tools invented exclusively for the infliction of pain and the ending of life, each carefully researched with an accompanying full-color, highly detailed rendering. Learn More

The Jivaro Indians of the Peru-Ecuador interior have long been renowned for their ferocity and cruelty in warfare; they are also shamanistic, communing with ancient spectres through the ingestion of poisonous hallucinogens. But above all, the Jivaro are known for their unique and macabre brand of death magic - the severing and shrinking of human heads. Learn More

An oddly compelling, often hilarious forensic exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. Learn More

Taxidermy is everywhere these days—from hip restaurants to posh clothing stores. Yet few realize that behind these "stuffed" animals is a world of intrepid hunterexplorers, eccentric naturalists, and museum artisans, all devoted to the paradoxical pursuit of creating the illusion of life. Learn More

Only the scathing wit and searching intelligence of Jessica Mitford could turn an exposé of the American funeral industry into a book that is at once deadly serious and side-splittingly funny. Learn More