Description

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Never look at a grave the same way again

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

If you've ever scoffed at the high price of burying the dead, or ever wondered how your loved ones are handled when they die, or simply stared at tombstones with morbid fascination, then take a trip with Katherine Ramsland and learn about the booming industry -- and strange tales -- that surround cemeteries everywhere.

About the Author

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Katherine Ramsland has written a dozen books and numerous articles and short stories. In the past year she has been editing Vampyre Magazine. After publishing two books in psychology, Engaging the Immediate and The Art of Learning, she wrote Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice. At the same time she had a cover story in Psychology Today on our culture's fascination with vampires. She followed the biography with several guide books to Anne Rice's fictional worlds including The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and The Anne Rice Reader. Her last book before Piercing the Darkness was a biography of Dean Koontz called Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography. She has also written for The New York Times Book Review, The Writer, The Horror Show, The Newark Star Ledger, The Trenton Times, and Publishers Weekly. Ramsland has a master's degree in clinical psychology and a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has been a professor at Rutgers University, a therapist, and a psycho-educator specializing in the psyche's shadow side, and is currently at work on another master's degree--this one in forensic psychology. She lives in Princeton, NJ.