I found this slightly-battered hardcover at a neighborhood yard sale, and as I remembered this book fondly from my college days I had to pick it up as a release copy.

This is, of course, Mitford's scathing indictment of the American funeral industry, in which she pointed out a number of price-gouging methods and other shady sales techniques that were in common (though not universal) practice. Some of these are still thriving, as it happens, but then sales techniques tend to rely on some amount of psychological gamesmanship anyway, and when that's applied to those in mourning it's going to look bad, whether or not it's out of line with any other kind of salesmanship. But this book did open a lot of eyes to the details of the funeral industry, and the difference between what's legally required and what's purely optional when making burial arrangements. And it might still be of assistance to anyone who's giving thought to planning final arrangments for themselves or for loved ones...

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I plan to leave this book on the book-swap shelf in the Tyngsboro post office lobby at about 2:30. Hope the finder enjoys it!

I was surprised to find this book back on the post office book-swap shelf today, after so many years of silence. I had to reclaim it to release elsewhere, and only hope that one or more folks did enjoy it in the interim but opted not to journal.

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]