Funerals
Everyday life in the Eternal City: Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, reviewed
Each story circles around events both big and small, such as lunch at a simple trattoria, a birthday party, a summer holiday or the funeral of a friend
Funeral gatecrasher: The Black Dress, by Deborah Moggach, reviewed
Here is a rare dud from the usually reliable Deborah Moggach. Her protagonist, Pru, finds herself alone at 69 after…
The importance of a good funeral
A proper funeral is a great comfort
The pagan rites of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg succumbed to cancer, #RestInPower immediately trended. The ACLU, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, actress Reese Witherspoon and the ostensibly…
Who deserves a funeral?
No one would argue that Rep. John Lewis doesn’t deserve a proper memorial. He was a civil rights icon and…
Remember when Joe Biden gave a eulogy for Strom Thurmond?
Biden did not attend the private funeral and burial of George Floyd today. Instead, Biden recorded a video to be…
The comfort of building your own coffin
The rise of ‘coffin clubs’
The Polish electronic music revolution of the 1950s
It was created in November 1957, a year before the BBC’s fabled Radiophonic Workshop, and was far more influential in…
Dear Mary: I’m disabled – how can I stop my carer being so controlling?
Q. I am a disabled man with a good brain and an independent bent. However, I need help to wash…
Is the increasing secularisation of funerals a good thing?
‘You’re thinking these girls all wrong,’ Miss Mai tells Enid in Winsome Pinnock’s play Leave Taking, adapted from the recent…
J.S. Bach v. Joan Baez
I was at a funeral the other day at which the music was so inspiring that I struggled to feel…
Dear Mary
Q. Mary, I am what you would probably call a Sloane Ranger. I have great numbers of close friends and…
The slow (and ignominious) death of the British funeral
I mourn for the traditional ceremony
Dear Mary: How do I address a magistrate of indeterminate sex?
Q. Some years ago, while appearing as a barrister before a bench of three magistrates in the youth court, I…
Why I love undertakers
By looking after the dead, funeral directors allow the living to love and mourn them
Dear Mary: Why it's fine to crash funerals
Q. Regarding the writing of ‘no presents’ on an invitation (Dear Mary, 6 July), my own experience is that many…
