Book Review: Rest in Pieces

Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses by Bess Lovejoy is a delightful read about those famous or infamous corpses that have been stolen, stuffed, burned, put on trial,  never mind pieces of them are possibly all over the place.

The first line of the book is usually the most important, so reading;

A corpse is always a problem – both for the living and the dead.

If that isn’t the best way to hook someone into reading this, letting them know exactly what this book would entail, I don’t know what will.

This book focuses on the dead, the corpses and even parts of their anatomy, but there is other parts in this as well, like how the deceased had one idea of what they wanted done with their body while the family just do something completely different.

Some interesting stories focus on Eva Peron, Lenin and Rasputin, although their are other stories from people who might not be as well known, they might be famous but that doesn’t mean that you will know much about them now.

The book is divided into sections, all obviously focus on corpses but they are put into sections with the few following titles:

• Saints and Sinners – focusing on those that aren’t just saints, because Voltaire is in there, but about the power the Church had over the dead and those who were affected by it.
• Body Politics – ‘A dead political leader is an opportunity for major propaganda.’  This is where you learn why Lenin’s body was mummified against his wishes, why Che Guevara’s remains were a secret and the treatment to Osama bin Laden’s corpse.
• Love and Devotion – This is where death can make a relationship – romantic or platonic – become rather one-sided, like in regards to Galileo and Percy Shelly who had devoted friends, in regards to Shelly his friend took something that should have been given to his wife.

There is so much in here to read that I have wound up reading this book twice in the space of a few months, which doesn’t normally happen.  It was enlightening reading though, although there were times when I felt myself become detached to the book, just because I didn’t know the person that the author was talking about – because although this is focused on the West, it’s also a bit American focused too, so for someone like me who isn’t American, I just didn’t enjoy that.

Overall though, if you enjoy books about death, wanted to know more information about corpses of famous people, then this could be a book for you to read.  It’s certainly an enjoyable read overall.