The Dying Game: A Curious History of Death

by Melanie King

Would you like to be buried, burned, sunk, or pickled? Perhaps you'd prefer to be turned into a diamond, embalmed like Lenin, or shot into space like Star Trek's Scotty?
The Dying Game is a roller-coaster history of everything that has, could, and does befall a corpse - from the bizarre and grisly death rituals of ancient and modern cultures, to the morbidly fascinating biological, ethical, and legal story that begins only when we end.
A book of the dead that's as gruesomely entertaining as it is exhaustively informative, Melanie King's adventure into the world of this uniquely human obsession lifts the lid on everything you never knew (and didn't know you wanted to know) about the last Death.

Genres: Death, Nonfiction, History

218 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2008

Reviews

[Jennifer deBie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much in the vein of Mary Roach's Stiff, King's The Dying Game is an absolutely delightful, and utterly irreverent, history of death and the weird things we've been doing with our dead for centuries. For researchers, it's refreshing for someone to look at the kooky history of death and the death industry and point out that it is, indeed, kooky. For lay people, I'm sure it's fun too.

I'm a firm believer that much of society's fear of death comes from the unknown, and writers/historians like King, who are willing to demystify it even a little are my heroes. I am very glad this book exists and even gladder that I found it in time to use it in my PhD thesis.

[MR MARK J PEDDER · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book you can't put down

This book was full of interesting facts and information that had me hooked from the first page. So much so that I have read it twice now in a short space of time. Definitely recommend it.

[F. Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed history of different types of funerals traditions in ancient times and the world today

[Emily]

A lot of interesting facts, but the writing left me cold.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morbidly entertaining and witty. A ghoulish tour of the life after our deaths in the physical realm...so sorry about your lip implants...holy chinese foetuses, Batman, that's disgusting (and so much more!). Good times.

[Lexi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally finished this. The read was entertaining, and it was, as I thought, the the European counterpart to Stiff. Different writing type, but similar information. Fascinating as always when given a small glimpse into cultural aspects of anything, but in the case, death, dying and views on both.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, entertaining and morbidly enlightening. Loved it.