Living with the Dead - by Vibeke Maria Viestad & Andreas Viestad (Hardcover)

About the Book

English translation of: D²deboka: livet med d²den.

Book Synopsis

Spanning geographies, cultures, and the ages, a moving journey into the physical facts and metaphysical mysteries of how the living care for the dead.

Death is universal. It will meet us all. But it's also a practical problem--what do we do with dead bodies? Vibeke Maria and Andreas Viestad live by a cemetery and are daily spectators of its routines, and their fascination with burials has led them to dig deep to examine our relationship with the dead. Taking us on a journey around the world and into the past, the Viestads explore how the deceased are honored and cared for, cremated, and buried. From archaeological sites in Spain, Israel, and Russia to environmentally friendly burials in the United States and Ghana's fantasy coffins, and from cremations without fire to the new industry turning our dearly departed's ashes into diamonds, this empathetic and enthralling book is for anyone who knows their turn is coming, but who'd like a good book for the journey.

Review Quotes

"Vibeke Maria Viestad and Andreas Viestad, a food activist and former Washington Post columnist, take readers on an exciting and engaging journey to probe death and burial customs throughout world history... The authors are most able writers, offering a book that is extremely readable, compassionately written, and full of vivid examples, all of which make for an illuminating and satisfying reading experience."--W. Feigelman, emeritus, Nassau Community College "Choice"

"No bones about it, there are wild and wonderful ways to honor the dead. TV chef and newspaper columnist Andreas Viestad and his wife Vibeke live in a Norwegian cemetery. Their fascination with burials led them to dig deep into relationships with death."-- "Sunday Post"

"Death is existential, instrumental, and emotional. In revealing the stories of ceremonies and practicalities from near and far, across space and time, the Viestads offer us an account that's deadly serious as well as driven by a curiosity about rituals and feelings. A beautifully written, highly informative, and surprisingly entertaining book."--Thomas Hylland Eriksen, anthropologist and author of "What is Anthropology?" and "Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change"

About the Author

Vibeke Maria Viestad is an archaeologist at the University of Oslo and an honorary research fellow at Wits University, Johannesburg. She is the author of Dress as Social Relations. Andreas Viestad is a writer, TV chef, restaurateur, and food activist. He is the longtime host of New Scandinavian Cooking and a former columnist at the Washington Post. He is the author of Dinner in Rome, also published by Reaktion Books. The Viestads live by a graveyard in Oslo and on a farm outside of Cape Town. Matt Bagguley is a translator of Norwegian fiction and nonfiction. He lives in Oslo.