All That Remains: A Life in Death

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There are a wide variety of cases offered to the reader in the course of this book. I'd rather people discovered the stories for themselves. However I would just say that the Kosovo chapter was far the hardest to read and made me shed a tear. It might well have been the one with most humour in too. Certainly the Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Kosovo chapters show just how determinedly outspoken the author can be although she appears to be listened too increasingly as well. One might expect [this book] to be a grim read but it absolutely isn’t. I found it invigorating! Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4 'Start the Week' I might be out of step with other reviewers who loved this book, no problem, I have a bookshop, I'm used to my customers not liking my recommendations and me not liking what they read, that is why we have such diversification in book subjects. (Unless the author is chasing money in which case it will be a Twilight situation with a million teenage vampire romances.)

The programme was even more fascinating than I could have imagined and helped me discover more about both the process of identifying human remains and what kind of person it takes to do it. This book expands on much of what was in that interview, as well as adding more details about her life, work, and the cases in which she's been involved. It's a mish-mash of history, science, memoir, police investigations, cold cases, natural disasters, education and invention...not to mention some handy tips for would be murderers er...writers about procedure. For example, dismembering a body in certain ways cases too much leakage, making it harder to move and there really is a best way to remove a human head. And don't forget about the smell if you try to hide body parts in your cupboard or beneath your driveway (yes, she's seen this). Since the bathtub is well sized for a human body, people usually use it to cut up their inconveniently sized dead so Scene of Crime officers start their search there as a matter of course. Apparently it's hard to cut up/saw through a corpse without scratching the bath surface and it's very difficult to clean all the necessary drainage parts. Sadly, she didn't suggest better alternatives but I have these snippets of advice mentally shelved in case I ever need them. Which I won't, obviously. At first I was hesitant with this book, because there is just no way around it that death is a topic that easily gets gruesome. But this book turned out to be so much more intriguing than I could have guessed up front. What impressed me most is that Sue’s warm personality is clearly present from beginning to end. You get to know her as a loving mother, a no-nonsense woman, and she never fails to keep in mind morality. Part memoir, part science, part meditation on death, her book is compassionate, surprisingly funny, and it will make you think about death in a new light. I'm not going to lie, but this book made my spine tingle, profusely. A book based on the matter of death, probably shouldn't excite and intrigue a being as much as it has, but that day, earlier this year, when I bought this book in Waterstones, I had my Mum with me at the time, and although we have similar tastes, she has been known to raise that right eyebrow at some of mine.

For fans of Caitlin Doughty, Mary Roach, Kathy Reichs, and CSI shows, a renowned forensic scientist on death and mortality. Readers who expect a precise in-depth recitation of her work on bodies will be disappointed. She details only the essential science, with edited descriptions of her examinations of bodies. I believe she edits the autopsies because they are of real people with living relatives. Besides, many of us ordinary general readers probably couldn’t handle too much of graphic medical narratives, although she does get into general descriptions of rotting bodies, and of bodies having been torn apart or damaged, and the smells and appearances of a dead body. She mixes quite a lot into her autobiography her feelings and thoughts - perhaps too often and over-the-top, imho. She really wants to put across to readers her concern for the proper respectful handling of the bodies. She never loses sight of the fact that the bodies were people. For fans of Caitlin Doughty, Mary Roach, and CSI shows, a renowned forensic scientist on death and mortality.

A model of how to write about the effect of human evil without losing either objectivity or sensitivity . . . Heartening and anything but morbid . . . Leaves you thinking about what kind of human qualities you value, what kinds of people you actually want to be with' (Rowan Williams, New Statesman) Ideal reading if you're a cheerful soul who likes to think about death. And think how it'll brighten your conversation on holiday. The Times One might expect [this book] to be a grim read but it absolutely isn't. I found it invigorating!' (Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4 'Start the Week') Briefly - fascinating, powerful and very well written. Without question this will be one of my best books of the year. What I did not like about the books was that she spent too many chapters philosophizing about life and death ("what is life; what is death...what makes a person a person...what constitutes identity et al...")A beautifully written memoir full of reflections on the deaths of strangers and family members. Oliver Thring, Sunday Times An engrossing memoir ... an affecting mix of the personal and professional." (Erica Wagner Financial Times)

Poignant and thoughtprovoking... it is the book’s humanity which will connect with readers." ( Scottish Daily Mail) Nearly two decades after his death, opinion remains divided as to whether Auberon Waugh was one of the great English humorists or a snobbish antediluvian. This anthology-cum-memoir, respectfully put together by his Literary Review colleague Naim Attallah, supports both arguments. Yet even Waugh’s detractors have to accept that at his best, he combined sharp wit with an intellectual force that might persuade even the most sceptical of readers to momentarily accept the “modest proposals” with which he took delight in scandalising the establishment. Stubborn Archivist Yara Rodrigues Fowler A model of how to write about the effect of human evil without losing either objectivity or sensitivity ... Heartening and anything but morbid... Leaves you thinking about what kind of human qualities you value, what kinds of people you actually want to be with. Rowan Williams, New Statesman Could not finish. I honestly can’t discourage reading any of her work enough. Even basic facts are wrong, and written with such conviction that I can’t believe anything else. The one that bothered me particularly is that she says that the surgeon Henry Gray, the author of Gray’s anatomy, was from Aberdeen. He is from/worked in London. There’s another surgeon named Henry Gray, from Aberdeen, who was also well-known, though mainly for his wound excision during the First World War, some 50 years after the other one died.For a professor of anatomy and forensic anatomy I had expected more. The best book I've ever read on anatomy and death (and philosophy, in the form of thoughful essays) is by F. González-Crussí. His The Day of the Dead: And Other Mortal Reflections is so stupendous, and so brilliantly written I was never able to come up with a review that would accurately reflect my impressions of it. I suppose I was less taken with the small sections near the beginning of the book that seemed to be more like a familial memoir or history rather than delivering facts and experiences. Although there was always a reason for them, such as a device to further expand the readers understanding of various biological processes etc., I just wasn’t that taken with them in comparison to the later chapters.