This is a loving look at the subject of death assembled from the photographic archives of Harvard University. What distinguishes it from a lot of the other death-photo books currently available is the breadth of its field of inquiry and the quality of the photography. These are not merely “scene of the crime” documents, but portraits of the dead and other depictions meant to be actual finished works of art. Among the categories included are: staging death, death by violence, death at medical school, remains of death, death and the family, and mourning and ritual. Dignity is the underlying motif. Despite its potential to tread macabre territory, there is no cheap shock value in this book’s presentation. SA

Publisher: Godine
Paperback: 141 pages
Illustrated