Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death

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Best selling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers real questions from children about death, dead bodies, and decomposition. The thing I liked most about this book is that while some of these questions seem plain ridiculous, the author answers them honestly and authentically. The author intersperses her humor in every answer, but the responses are genuine and she relies on science and history to answer the questions and make her point. The founder of the Everyday Sexism Project turns her attention to the “manosphere”: a global network that believes in a feminist conspiracy in which men are the true victims of abuse and inequality. Bates’s research is impressively wide-ranging, spanning psychologists and sociologists to engagement with countless online forums, where she witnesses various forms of misogyny first-hand. Exposing links between sexism, white supremacy and the alt-right, Bates’s book is a compelling, timely investigation into contemporary gender politics. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? The book is a great example of how the knowledge of an expert can be broken down to interesting, short, funny, intelligent and catchy pieces and how much death can show the living how do be thankful for each day, enjoy each moment, be kind to each other, yada yada yada, boring! Carpe diemality.

First off, full confession: A Book Olive did not personally recommend this book to me. I watched her youtube video about this book and I consider it a recommendation because I never would have read this book otherwise. I also like to give credit where credit is due. So, thank you, Olive! You can watch her review here Well, that's complicated and depends on a lot of factors but I love her writing and this footnote, um, slayed me: As many of you know I am a children’s librarian. While reading this, I could actually see one of my kids visiting the library asking me or one of their parents some of these questions, and I am pretty darn glad I know the answers now. I probably will be advocating for this book to go into the parenting collection because I can see it really helping parents answer a lot of these very hard questions.No — the medical device can act like a small bomb in the cremation oven. It can, and should, be removed beforehand, Doughty says. I’ve also given talks all over the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on the wonders of death. My favorite part of these events is the Q & A. That’s when I get to hear people’s deep fascination with decaying bodies, head wounds, bones, embalming, funeral pyres—the works. What would happen to an astronaut’s body if it were pushed out of a space shuttle? Do people poop when they die? Can Grandma have a Viking funeral?

Here’s the deal: It’s normal to be curious about death. But as people grow up, they internalize this idea that wondering about death is “morbid” or “weird.” They grow scared, and criticize other people’s interest in the topic to keep from having to confront death themselves. Many people, including me, believe that we can control some of our fears by embracing death, learning about it, and asking as many questions as possible. As a child, Doughty learned about death violently when she saw another child fall in a shopping mall (“a complete aberration”). Afterwards, she developed OCD symptoms including tapping and compulsive spitting. “My brain was being invaded with the knowledge of death and the fact that people could be taken away from me at any moment and I couldn’t control it. All I could control were these little rituals.” We can’t make death fun, but we can make learning about death fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It bridges every culture and unites the whole of humanity!

In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Ms. Doughty answers several questions about death, dying, and dead bodies asked of her by children. They are things that many of you may have wondered too, at least when you were children and before you learned that death is a taboo subject and also something to be avoided at all costs. And yet, it cannot be avoided. At any cost. Unless you know something every single one of your fellow human beings don't know, you are going to eventually end up ashes or worm food or pumped full of embalming fluid. You are not going to get to enjoy your precious body for all eternity, it just doesn't work like that. No matter who you are or how rich you might be, no amount of money will buy you eternal life. Perhaps at some point in the future scientists will figure out how to upload our memories into machines and thus grant us immortality, but as of now, sorry, no can do. You're gonna croak. In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to thirty-five distinctive questions posed by her youngest fans. In the chapter "I went to the show where dead bodies with no skin play soccer. Can we do that with my body?" Doughty explains that the show is called Body Worlds. She describes in detail how the bodies are preserved and how they are obtained. Apparently, there is a waiting list to donate your body to the exhibition. She ends with a warning that sometimes body parts are stolen. In New Zealand, someone snatched a few plastinated toes from a cadaver: "Each toe was valued at more than three thousand dollars --- pretty pricey toes, though not quite an arm and a leg."

I like horror, humor and science and this book has everything in it. The wit often comes just from the constellations of topics, from questions an adult wouldn´t dare to ask. So the philosophy that is still in kids and gets lost more and more with the ages, jumps from each side because the questions may seem trivial, but have hidden depths. And children aren´t as constrained, onesided, indoctrinated and socially normed as adults so that they still have an open and healthy attitude towards the topic. The second novel by the co-writer and star of Gavin & Stacey follows three female friends over the course of four decades. Each woman faces challenges that test the limits of their friendship, from addiction and infidelity to toxic relationships, grief and betrayal. Throughout, Jones’s trademark warmth and humour suffuse the novel with comedy and pathos, making for a heart-warming, entertaining and, at times, deeply moving story. Men Who Hate Women Weirdly this has turned more into an account of the cool shit I learnt instead of a review. So I’ll wrap it up by saying that this book was amazing and hilarious, the illustrations were fantastic and I highly recommend it! (One last fact – did you know that the average male offers roughly 125,822 calories from protein and fat?!)Alas, fake fake fakety fake...Who knows how the rumors got started? The Vikings had elaborate cremations! They had boats! They just didn't have cremation boats!" Emiko Tamagawa produced this interview and edited it for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

Not everyone feels the same. Some people find comfort in denial. Doughty’s humorous and transparent approach can be controversial, with some of her viewers and readers criticising her for not discussing grief enough. But she’s anything but insensitive, and knows better than anyone about the impact of losing someone: “You’re never going to be the same again. But how can we turn this into something healthy as opposed to something else? Turning grief into healthy grief is not a disservice to the person who died, even if it was someone incredibly close to you. It’s not a disservice to mourn them in a healthy, open way. You’re never going to get over it, no matter what, but you remember the experience with a sort of melancholic, whimsical engagement. You can really do the work, or you can just remember it as a source of deep trauma. You’re going to remember it one way or the other – so what is that going to look like?”Not really. Doughty says many of the Viking funerals you see on TV — cue “Game of Thrones” — aren’t the real deal.