Many of our AGS members are avid readers. If you are one of them, we hope you’ll join us on the third Sunday of each month for the AGS Book Club. Each month we'll focus on a book about cemeteries, gravestones, mourning customs, funerary practices and death & dying. We hope to include books written by AGS members, classics in our field, newly published books, as well as fiction that feature the subjects mentioned above.
Grab a coffee or a tea, cozy up, and join our conversation!
Details for our next book club meeting:
Facilitator: Katie Goodsell
When: Sunday, January 19, 2025
Time: 7 p.m. Eastern Time
Where: Please register here: https://ags.wildapricot.org/event-5998188
We'll send a Zoom link to the registrants on the day of the book club meeting.
Our selection for January 2025: Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses by Paul Koudounaris.
It is sometimes said that death is the last taboo, but it was not always so. For centuries, religious establishments constructed decorated ossuaries and charnel houses that stand as masterpieces of art created from human bone. These unique structures have been pushed into the footnotes of history; they were part of a dialogue with death that is now silent.
You'll also learn about places such as the sites in this specially photographed and brilliantly original study range from the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Palermo, where the living would visit mummified or skeletal remains and lovingly dress them; to the Paris catacombs; to fantastic bone-encrusted creations in Austria, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
Looking forward to seeing you in January!
Your hosts: Katie Goodsell and Ashlynn Rickord Werner
