YY Liak offers a lively exploration of death practices around the world.

On this episode of Fully Booked, YY Liak joins us to discuss Curious Coffins and Riveting Rituals: Death Practices Around the World (Chronicle Books, September 30), a vibrant survey of funerals and death rites in various communities throughout time.

Liak is a Chinese Singaporean illustrator, designer, and author currently based in the New York City area, where she designs book covers at Grand Central Publishing. She studied illustration and art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art ( MICA ). Curious Coffins and Riveting Rituals marks her debut as an author/illustrator.

Here’s a bit more from our review: “Packed with historical anecdotes accompanied by bright and playful images, this survey will delight readers young and old. For instance, in parts of the South Pacific, Liak writes, ‘it is believed that little bits of life leave our bodies throughout our lifetimes, such as when we fall asleep or get sick, so it may be said that we “die” multiple times before finally passing on. For communities such as these, death is not an event but a gradual social process.’ In 17th-to-19th century Wales, ‘sin-eaters’ often attended funerals. The author writes, ‘They were often poor and desperate outcasts who were paid to consume bread and beer that had supposedly soaked up the evils of the deceased after being placed near the bodies for extended periods of time.’ Liak shares snippets about cemeteries, phantoms, charnel houses, and mourning attire.…Ghana knows how to put the ‘fun’ in funerals, she observes. ‘Many coffins recall the deceased’s former professions. For example, fishermen are sometimes buried in fish-shaped coffins. Now that’s a way to go. An endearing and lighthearted look at the fate that awaits us all.”

Liak and I talk about how the book was inspired, in part, by conversations with her father during the Covid-19 pandemic. We discuss funerary cannibalism in the Amazon, sky burials in Tibet, approaching the subject of death with curiosity and compassion, working on the cover illustration with her publishing team, and much more.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, and John McMurtrie share their top picks in books for the week.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Beasts by Ingvild Bjerkeland, trans. by Rosie Hedger (Levine Querido)

Late Today by Jungyoon Huh, illus. by Myungae Lee, trans. by Aerin Park (Eerdmans)

Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by Jeff Chang (Mariner Books)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Life and How To Live It by Chaz Holesworth

Unauthorized Disclosures by Rod Haynes

Where You Come From Is Gone by Christopher Johnston

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.