Here are 82 books that Death and Rebirth in a Southern City fans have personally recommended if you like
Death and Rebirth in a Southern City.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Why do I love books set in cemeteries? Maybe it’s because I grew up living right next to one and still do. I spent hours as a child wandering around and even playing hide and seek among the tombstones. It’s a place where the living and dead meet, a place of mourning, memories, and peace. Cemeteries have so many superstitions and lore surrounding them. The stories written about them can be spooky, mysterious, sad, heartfelt, and any number of things, so the ideas are endless.
I loved this book from the first page. There’s something both eerie and comforting about a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard. I was enamored by the atmosphere, soft fog, ancient tombstones, and strange creatures lurking just out of sight.
Gaiman has a gift for writing stories that feel like old folktales, but are still fresh and full of heart. I didn’t want it to end because I fell in love with the idea of this unconventional “family” protecting a boy as he grows up surrounded by the dead. It’s dark, magical, and unexpectedly warm.
When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing his entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard? Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him - after all, he is the last remaining member of the family. A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, featuring every second year of Bod's life, from babyhood to adolescence. Will Bod survive to be a man?
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I have inventoried hundreds of cemeteries and thousands of historic gravestones, my mentor (Jim Deetz) wrote the seminal study that brought the study of gravestones into archaeology, and I truly believe the words of former English Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, who said, “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”
Greg Melville’s Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries is a highly personal yet richly researched investigation into the history of U.S. cemeteries. Best of all, Melville doesn’t just study gravestones or the final resting place of famous people, he takes a deep dive into nearly every aspect of memorialization, including landscapes, mortuary practices, economics, and social rituals.
A lively tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our dead The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its history. Thus was born Melville's lifelong curiosity with how, where, and why we bury and commemorate our dead. Melville's Over My Dead Body is a lively (pun intended) and wide-ranging history of cemeteries, places…
I have inventoried hundreds of cemeteries and thousands of historic gravestones, my mentor (Jim Deetz) wrote the seminal study that brought the study of gravestones into archaeology, and I truly believe the words of former English Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, who said, “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”
This is one of the few books on cemeteries that captures the unmistakable ethereal beauty of graveyards. Sandra Clark’s spectacular photographic collection of images from some of America’s most breathtaking memorials in New Orleans brings together art and science, soliloquy and stone, and most importantly, life and death.
Separating the true stories from the myths, The Duty of Memory provides a deeper understanding of the diverse motivations that drove ordinary people to join an underground network of French Resistants despite terrible odds and horrifying consequences.
This book takes the reader inside the true story of men and women…
I have inventoried hundreds of cemeteries and thousands of historic gravestones, my mentor (Jim Deetz) wrote the seminal study that brought the study of gravestones into archaeology, and I truly believe the words of former English Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, who said, “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”
For many of us who study cemeteries, there is a danger of thinking that these landscapes of the dead are just bodies and gravestones. Katherine Ramsland’s Cemetery Stories: Haunted Graveyards, Embalming Secrets, and the Life of a Corpse After Death is one of the few books out there that details every step between death and internment, which are just as revealing about American culture as a fancy gravestone epitaph or a biography of a deceased local celebrity.
Admit it: You're fascinated by cemeteries. We all die, and for most of us, a cemetery is our final resting place. But how many people really know what goes on inside, around, and beyond them?
Enter the world of the dead as Katherine Ramsland talks to mortuary assistants, gravediggers, funeral home owners, and more, and find out about:
Stitching and cosmetic secrets used on mutilated bodies Embalmers who do more than just embalm The rising popularity of cremation art Ghosts that infest graveyards everywhere
Holly Worton is an author, podcaster, and speaker. She writes nonfiction books about her adventures to inspire people to get outdoors and reconnect with nature so they can reconnect with themselves. Holly enjoys spending time outdoors, walking and running long-distance trails, and exploring Britain's sacred sites. Travel is important to her: she's originally from California and now lives in England, but has also lived in Spain, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. Holly is a member of the Druid order OBOD, and nature connection is an important part of her spirituality.
Nature connection is also about having adventures in the outdoors. What better way to plan new outdoor adventures than to be inspired by someone else’s? This book follows the author on an unconventional new route through England.
Robert Twigger, poet and travel author, was in search of a new way up England when he stumbled across the Great North Line. From Christchurch on the South Coast to Old Sarum to Stonehenge, to Avebury, to Notgrove barrow, to Meon Hill in the midlands, to Thor's Cave, to Arbor Low stone circle, to Mam Tor, to Ilkley in Yorkshire and its three stone circles and the Swastika Stone, to several forts and camps in Northumberland to Lindisfarne (plus about thirty more sites en route). A single dead straight line following 1 degree 50 West up Britain. No other north-south…
I remember well my first visit to Gettysburg on a high school trip. I had trouble expressing what I felt until I read the words of a battlefield guide who said that he often sensed a “brooding omnipresence.” I have often felt such presences across the historic landscape in the U.S. and elsewhere. I am now Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University, and former editor of the Journal Of American History. I have also written Preserving Memory: The Struggle To Create America’s Holocaust Museum; The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City In American Memory, and co-edited American Sacred Space; History Wars: The Enola Gay And Other Battles For The American Past; and Landscapes Of 9/11: A Photographer’s Journey.
Photographer Andrew Lichtenstein and historian Alex Lichtenstein offer readers compelling visual expression of the instability of public memory. The authors ask who and what gets remembered and forgotten, and where and how? What is consigned to oblivion and why? What do such choices reveal about what national stories we prize and those we find uncomfortable, even indigestible? The powerful photographs suggest how volatile historic sites can be marked by absence as well as presence.
From Wounded Knee to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and from the Upper Big Branch mine disaster to the Trail of Tears, Marked, Unmarked, Remembered presents photographs of significant sites from US history, posing unsettling questions about the contested memory of traumatic episodes from the nation's past. Focusing especially on landscapes related to African American, Native American, and labor history, Marked, Unmarked, Remembered reveals new vistas of officially commemorated sites, sites that are neglected or obscured, and sites that serve as a gathering place for active rituals of organized memory.
These powerful photographs by award-winning photojournalist Andrew Lichtenstein are interspersed with…
What were America's first prisons like? How did penal reformers, prison administrators, and politicians deal with the challenges of confining human beings in long-term captivity as punishment--what they saw as a humane intervention?
The Deviant Prison centers on one early prison: Eastern State Penitentiary. Built in Philadelphia, one of the…
My father was a curator and archaeologist at the British Museum, so I had to have my own collection in our attic. It was somewhat more modest but included both cultural and natural artifacts and guided me to both a career in geology and an interest in the links between culture and science. I wrote a book with my father on the geology of Greece for archeologists, which eventually led to my latest book on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I write from the perspective that ancient cultures were constrained and shaped by natural resources and events, as they are still today. By understanding that link, we can perhaps better comprehend our world.
This short book starts with my favorite executive summary of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, ‘Two statues, a temple, a roof-top garden, two tombs and a lighthouse’.
Each monument is discussed by an expert on the subject who gives you all you need to know and not much more.
The book was first published in 1988 but is still acknowledged as the best general summary, as the classical sources and archeology have not changed significantly since then.
Sets each of the seven wonders in their historical context, bringing together materials from ancient sources and the results of modern excavations to suggest why particular places and objects have been seen as the touchstone for human achievement.
I am an art historian and the author of various books about modern art, including Styles, Schools & Movements: The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art and three editions of Destination Art. I coined the phrase ‘Destination Art’ in order to discuss artworks in which location is an integral ingredient, as is the journey to find them. I had noticed projects like these happening all over the world, but often in a quiet way. They needed someone to shine the light on them – so I did! My goal is to educate, enthuse and excite – and to continue my mission of spreading the word about intriguing and inspiring art projects.
Art critic Gayford’s engaging and entertaining essays recount his adventures over the years when meeting artists and visiting destination art sites around the world, such as Brancusi’s Endless Column in Romania and the Chinati Foundation in Texas. A great storyteller, his writing is both chatty and informative and the book is a pleasure to read.
Bestselling author of Modernists & Mavericks Martin Gayford recounts some of the extraordinary journeys he has made in the name of art.
In the course of a career thinking and writing about art, Martin Gayford has travelled all over the world both to see works of art and to meet artists. Gayford's journeys, often to fairly inaccessible places, involve frustrations and complications, but also serendipitous encounters and outcomes, which he makes as much a part of the story as the final destination. Entertaining and informative, Gayford includes trips to see Brancusi's Endless Column in Romania, prehistoric cave art in France,…
I have always been passionate and outspoken about fairness. This passion evolved into my attention to words and laws and a belief that they could affect behavior. This passion evolved into my passion for social change. Finally, it evolved into a passion for public service, where I could make things happen that I believed would help people. My first action as Chief Ranger for Legislation in the Boston office of the National Park Service was proposing a new park for women’s history, which eventually became the Women’s Rights National Historical Park.
I wish I could have read this book as I struggled to promote the sites in Seneca Falls to become a new national park. The US Congress directed the National Park Service to seek out and preserve sites that tell “nationally significant” aspects of our country’s history. Naming a place and its remaining structures nationally significant brings notice, interest, visitors, and support. Severely limiting parks focused on women might suggest that women’s history is not nationally significant.
I found the 19 chapters describing the benefits and challenges of selecting, preserving, and promoting the sites, structures, and stories of women’s trials and achievements heartening and inspiring. Each chapter provides valuable insights into the complex process of protecting historical places that reflect women's contributions to our nation's history. These stories highlight the importance of giving due recognition to sites connected to women's experiences and struggles.
Historic sites are visited by millions of people every year, but most of these places perpetuate the public notion that men have been the primary agents of historical change. This book reveals that historic sites and buildings have much to tell us about women's history. It documents women's contributions to the historic preservation movement at places such as Mount Vernon and explores women's history at several existing landmarks such as historic homes, as wells as in a wider array of cultural landscapes ranging from nurses' residences in Montreal to prostitutes' quarters in Los Angeles. The book includes essays on six…
Pioneer Paddles of the Colonial South
by
William D. Auman,
Award-winning novelist William Auman, author of If Trees Could Testify..., takes the reader on a time-traveling odyssey featuring 345 bodies of water in six states within the historical context through which they unfold.
Journey into remaining Colonial-era wilderness with stories of pirate treasure, epic frontiersmen, Indigenous Peoples, and Revolutionary…
I started my career in tourism but soon discovered my passion for urban heritage. Working as a site manager for a world heritage site, I gathered extensive insights on various levels of heritage management and urban governance from many colleagues around the world. Today there is no single project or meeting that does not address the challenges of climate change. Obtaining my Ph.D. late in life, in Heritage-Based Urban Development, I quicklybecame convinced that the traditional ideas of what cultural heritage is do not reflect the situation today and hinder giving cultural heritage a role in climate change prevention and adaption, beyond the narrative that it has to be preserved.
Kalman's book on Heritage Management provides a great introduction and overview to the topic. He embraces an integrated and modern understanding of cultural heritage and addresses the potential obstacles heritage managers meet at the crossing points between the different relevant factors.
By focussing on the process, he gives fruitful insights based on case studies from around the world. Climate change, sustainability, and resilience are also integrated into this useful book.
I found this book useful because it describes cases, focuses on transferable principles, and emphasizes that the process is equally important as the desired result. By reading this book and the introduced approach, I really felt encouraged to follow up on my own approach, which I always focus on extracting strategies and principles from good examples because I strongly believe that they can be transferred much better to different places.
I also enjoyed the attention that has been given to…
This new and substantially revised edition of Heritage Planning: Principles and Process offers an extensive overview of the burgeoning fields of heritage planning and conservation. Positioning professional practice within its broader applied and theoretical contexts, the authors provide a firm foundation for understanding the principles, history, evolution, debates, and tools that inform heritage planning, while also demonstrating how to effectively enact these processes.
Few published works focus on the practice of heritage planning. The first edition of this book was developed to fill this gap, and this second edition builds upon it. The book has been expanded in scope to…
