The vast number of cemetery books are books about a single cemetery. Often they’re assembled by a historian or a historical group and talk about the influential or famous people buried there. Sometimes those books are put together to celebrate a milestone for the cemetery: its centennial or sesquicentennial. These books are often heavily illustrated or even predominately photographs.

A smaller number of books concern the authors’ adventures in visiting cemeteries: the things they see, the people they meet, the history they encounter. I’m finding more and more of those kinds of books these days.

Maybe the first one that caught my attention was Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. From an open-air cremation in Colorado to body composting in South Carolina, from picnics with corpses in Indonesia to the altars built for the Mexican Day of the Dead, from a Buddhist temple in Tokyo filled with cremains to consulting skull oracles in Bolivia, Caitlin crisscrosses the globe, trying to understand for herself what the dead mean to survivors and how we can keep their memories alive.

Peter Ross’s Tomb With A View: Stories and Glories of Graveyards was another favorite of mine. Although its mostly limited to the British Isles, Ross tells the stories of the graveyards and their dead as he travels around. Most of all, he conveys how the relationships between the dead and those who remain behind deepen with time. It’s a lovely, life-affirming book.

Greg Melville’s Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries leans more heavily into the history of cemeteries, but I really liked the travel memoir aspect of the book, too. As someone who has dragged everyone I know to a cemetery once (or more than once), I felt Melville was a kindred spirit. I was glad for the opportunity to visit these cemeteries through his eyes.

My newest book, Still Wish You Were Here: More Adventures in Cemetery Travels, follows in those authors’ footsteps. I’ve described it as “My Life in Cemeteries,” spanning from accidentally wandering into a cemetery after dark with my college friends to burying my dad in the little farmstead graveyard near where I grew up. Along the way, I drag my husband, daughter, and friends to the California Gold Country, the Bone Chapel of Kutna Hora, the Gate to Hell in Kyoto, Pompeii, Singapore, and Carrie Fisher’s grave in Southern California, among dozens of other cemeteries.

If that intrigues you, the book is up for preorders on Kickstarter now. It’s reached its initial fundraising goal already, so it is guaranteed to be published in October. Backers have opened up stretch goals that include a downloadable reader’s guide and a Zoom party to chat about cemeteries. Next up is an in-person book release event with cemetery authors Amy Shea and Beth Winegarner.

You can check the campaign out here. I’d appreciate it if you’d share the link with any of your cemetery-loving friends who might be interested in it.