Lists for all you taphophiles: lots of books about cemeteries

I remember a trip through New England where I made a point to stop at virtually every cemetery I passed on a single day. I don’t have a morbid bent – but if you’ve ever seen a New England cemetery, you know how beautiful they can be. The sense of history is awe-inspiring. Of course my visits were during the daytime.

In one of those incidents that could be construed as nothing other than perfect timing, I came across this blog post from Publishers Weekly just as my sister an I are planning the funeral for our mom, who passed away on Wednesday. This post is dedicated to my mom, Betty P. Orsini, 1/8/1929-8/31/2011.

Literature Graveyard: Which Cemetery is the Most Literary?

Last month, we posted an article detailing some very strange ways that authors have met their end. The morbid side of literature got us thinking about the final resting places of authors, so we did some research and uncovered the cemeteries that can boast the most about the literary quality of their residents. Read on for more gloom.

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About a month ago, I did a post featuring a list of lists of kinds of books. Books about nurses, hermits, grandmothers, beekeeper, pirates, US presidents, and more. Since this post is about cemeteries in literature, I thought I’d give you a few lists of books about cemeteries.

• This first list, at shroudeater.com, is a thorough list, albeit a fairly esoteric collection of largely European titles. According to the site:

Unlike the type of vampire that we meet in novels and films, traditional vampires hardly ever live in a castle. The kind of undead that we are interested in, are said to “live” in their graves. Sufficient reason for us to also have a strong interest in churchyards, crypts, ossuaries, cemeteries, funeral customs, burial methods, etc., etc. This section concentrates on books about churchyards and cemeteries. Titles related to funeral customs and burial methods can be found in our DEATH section.

• Next up was Authonomy.com, with a list of “books tagged with ‘cemetery.'”

• After that, we have Potifos.com, with a list of “books about cemeteries (in association with Amazon.com).”

• Lastly, there’s the blog post “For Love of Cemeteries,” posted at MurderBlog: “In honor of the release of Melissa Marr’s book Graveminder, here are some of my favorite books featuring cemeteries…”

If you have any interest in cemeteries – or books about them – these lists should give you a good starting point.

Happy haunting!

Laura

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