100 Books Like The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

This is a magisterial biography of Ferdinand Foch, the man who would become Allied Generalissimo in 1918. Greenhalgh traces the development of one of France’s foremost soldiers, who overcame setbacks and trials, including the death of his only son in 1914, to guide the forces of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the United States to victory in 1918. Based upon meticulous research, this helped resurrect Foch’s reputation and place him, once more, at the centre of military histories of the Western Front. He emerges as a man of great courage, endless optimism, and a real understanding of what could, and could not, be achieved on the battlefield.

This book rose out of the grave and grabbed me by the ankles. I’ve always loved (and been completely terrified of) zombies. After 28 Days Later scarred me for life (that one scene with the crow and the blood ACK), zombies became somewhat of an obsession. But I always found myself wanting…more. Then this book shambled in my door, and suddenly, I had the twisted, funny, heartwarming zombie fairytale I never knew I needed in my life. It upended the undead genre, and I will love it forever for giving the mix of zombies and romance a big ole bear hug.

In his book, funeral director Stanley Swan ponders the question, “Are we destined before birth to be what is planned for us?” In Swan’s case, that just may be so. He shares several childhood experiences that he believes may have foreshadowed his career. In one reminiscence, he recounts how he tenderly cared for the remains of a dead sparrow. In another, Swan describes watching the local undertaker conduct a burial in the small cemetery adjacent to his family’s dairy farm in upstate New York, where Swan often played and explored. Fifteen years later, he enrolled in mortuary school and soon after was serving as a funeral director for his community. In his 40-year career, Swan witnessed the public tragedies that were 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as well as the deaths of many of the locals he knew as friends. He writes about them all and offers a window into how… show more.

This book was given to me as a gift by a funeral director friend from Iowa. He told me he wanted to share the story of another pioneering/inspiring female in funeral service. And, indeed, that was what Mrs. Florence Steffy was. After the death of her husband, a beloved small-town funeral director, Steffy assured her community that the funeral home would continue to serve. And, along with help from her four children, serve she did for forty years. The book is a paean to Steffy, by her daughter, Doris, initially the only one of Steffy’s children reluctant to become part of the family business. She illuminates the challenges her mother faced at a time when women were seldom seen in funeral service, and how she faced them with strength and resilience.

Marjorie Kunch was 13 when her grandfather died. She could not have known at the time that his death and funeral would become the catalyst for her to one day pursue a career as a funeral director. But it was a second funeral, that of her grandmother, which turned Kunch into an author. Having searched for a book to explain the funeral rituals of the Serbian Orthodox Christian church to her young children, she found none. So, Kunch wrote her own. The text is easy-to-read and illustrated with a number of photos. What’s more, because of her work in funeral service, the funeral terminology is precise. When My Baba Died is an excellent resource for families and a must-have for every funeral director's library. The book is also available in a Greek Orthodox version titled, When my YiaYia Died.   

In 2018, Danny Jefferson was selected “Funeral Director of the Year” by his colleagues. That honor was more than just the culmination of many years of hard work. It was especially gratifying for Jefferson, whose success was hard-won. Hearing impaired since birth, he not only became licensed as a funeral director, but also realized his dream of owning a funeral home. In his book, Jefferson writes candidly about the unique challenges he faced, and overcame, along the way in both his personal and professional life. He hopes that by sharing his story, it will inspire others not to let their own challenges, whatever they are, hold them back from achieving their goals. His friend, and co-author Raymond Reid, a noted artist, helped choose the book's title and also created the cover.

I could not resist this book partly because I was already familiar with Doughty’s, “Ask a Mortician” YouTube series. I loved the way that she used her own experience as a young crematory operator, weaving in details of her personal life along the way, to show us all the different things that happen to bodies after they die.

I loved the dark humor she brought to subjects like embalming, cremation, and funeral directing. The poignant stories about collecting bodies from the places where they died, cremating bodies, and talking to family members or loved ones, helped me see the deeply human side of death care, and I certainly came away understanding a lot more about the realities of different body preparation and disposition options!

This is the book where it all began. Mark Harris opened up eyes and hearts to the beauty of burying our loved ones naturally and on our own terms. I had never read such a clear reality of the embalming process and how Americans morphed from simple home burial to the industrial Googleplex of the funeral business. Want to be buried in your backyard or with a sheet off your bed? Read this book! The author is a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and his work has been featured in many fabulous places.

Funeral directors often wonder about the lives of those they serve. Obituaries offer clues, but are limited in scope. Funeral director Eric Daniels decided to learn more about some of the lives entrusted to his care. Wanting them to be more than a “body” Daniels delves into the lives of “ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives.” In the book’s prologue, Daniels writes that the people he chose were those “who made a lasting impact on me because of the difference they made in the lives of others.”

Writing the book, Daniels says, enriched his own life. It also left a lasting legacy for the families of those whose lives he chronicled. An added bonus for readers is that the book’s forward was written by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, one of the country’s foremost grief experts.

Hollow Heathens, a hauntingly dark romance, overflows with Fiorina’s poetic prose. This book single-handedly made Fiorina an auto-buy author for me. Dark, forbidden love, a dangerous curse, legends and lore, murder and intrigue, Hollow Heathens will have you falling from the very first page. Seriously, I still dream about Julian x Fallon. I read the NA version, but Fiorina also released a YA version with milder language and fade-to-black spicy scenes so her daughter could enjoy the story as well.