Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

Caitlin Doughty is a licensed mortician and the host and creator of the "Ask a Mortician" web series.  She founded the death acceptance collective The Order of the Good Death and cofounded Death Salon.  In this book, she argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society and calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).  She fills the book with fascinating anecdotes and puts her degree in medieval history to good use by relating to us the history of our customs concerning death in America and around the world.  She demystifies a subject that a lot of people try to avoid even thinking about much less dealing with, and her humor and humanity shine through it all.  A quite interesting read.