An Undertaker's Diary - Putting you in the same room as Death!

Les Franklin joined the funeral trade in the 1970s, two months before his 18^th birthday, and worked there for over 14 years and in the last few years he kept a diary. This book is the diary.

Some of the stories may shock and disgust you when you read how bodies and mourners were treated. But the stories are all true and hopefully these appalling things no longer exist in the funeral trade. Hopefully.

Warning: This book should be avoided by gentle souls and fragile minds.

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.

From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell--and a special way of telling them.

In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death's door. Discover what scares them and what moves them to tears. Learn about rookie mistakes and why death sometimes calls for duct tape.

Enjoy tales of the dearly departed spending eternity naked from the waist down and getting bottled and corked--in a wine bottle. And then meet their families--the weepers, the punchers, the stolidly dignified, and the ones who deliver their dead mother in a pickup truck.

If there's one thing undertakers know, it's that death drives people crazy. These are the best "bodies of work" from America's darkest profession.

"Sick, funny, and brilliant! I love this book." --Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of They Bite! and Rot & Ruin

Working with the Dead opens doors to modern embalming and caring for the dead in a way that is easily understood by those wishing to follow the art.

Make yourself comfortable, lock the door, and prepare to be surprised.

When I mention that I work in an emergency room, people usually say,
1. Are you a nurse?
2. Wow. That must be really hard.
3. What's it like?

This is what it's like to be an emergency doctor.

That teenager puking up two liters of vodka and his stomach lining at triage? Yup. Blood pouring out of a terrified pregnant woman? Call me. And, of course, the patient who no longer has a nosebleed screaming at me across the department, "YOU are the most UNFEELING DOCTOR I have EVER MET!" Fun fun fun.

Let me peel back the curtain for you. It's not an iron curtain. In the emerg, it's most likely a crummy fabric curtain that too many other people have sneezed on.

Come on in.

Nominated for the Top 50 Must-Read Books for Nurses in 2012