Death and griefs are complex things and so is graveyards.
With this book it's not only a history of graveyards but also a picture into different social structures and human interactions with death and graves. What is so compelling about the graves of heroes of the past, that makes people visit them even now, even when the person has been gone for a century or more. This book explore this and so much more. Our attitudes to death and graveyards have changed over the centuries from mass-graves to overly decorated tomb to express or remember the person's life. We all deal with death in different ways we all have our own way that we think is socially acceptable way to deal wit this hard matter.

Peter Standford travels through Europe looking at different grave sites, some that are about the founders and the history of said site, other chapters will discuss the famous person who lived there and some chapters will talk about the religious or the social expectations of dealing with death.

In all it was a interesting book, I did expect it to dig a little deeper into rituals rather than history but I did find it enjoyable. I feel like it in the latter years have become more acceptable to talk about this topic. I did not find the book creepy or macabre, rather it is informative and insightful view of dealing with the end of life and how they did it through history.