
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
And Other Lessons from the Crematory
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Narrated by:
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Caitlin Doughty
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By:
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Caitlin Doughty
About this listen
Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead). Describing how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes), and cared for bodies of all shapes and sizes, Caitlin becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the deceased. Her eye-opening memoir shows how our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead). In the spirit of her popular Web series, "Ask a Mortician", Caitlin’s engaging narrative style makes this otherwise scary topic both approachable and profound.
Caitlin Doughty, the host and creator of the "Ask a Mortician" Web series and the collective Order of the Good Death, is on a mission to change the way we think about death.
©2014 Caitlin Doughty (P)2014 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
For 46 years, Carol Minto has quietly gone about her life, carrying with her the most extraordinary and heartbreaking secrets. In The Asylum, Carol tells the full story of how she overcame unimaginable suffering, to find the happiness and solace she has today as a mother and grandmother.
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Couldn’t stop listening
- By Tonya Copeland-Stone on 06-12-22
By: Ann Cusack - contributor, and others
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
- By: Stephen Done
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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March 1946. The railways are falling apart, rationing is getting worse and black marketeers are at work. For Violet McIntyre, a dressmaker living in Woodford Halse, it is a struggle to make ends meet. Her life becomes inextricably linked to an investigation that Detective Inspector Charles Vignoles of the Railway Detective Department is pursuing.
By: Stephen Done
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Stiff
- The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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For two thousand years, cadavers have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.
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I worked with cadavers for years, but....
- By POQA on 11-11-12
By: Mary Roach
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Silent Siren
- Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician
- By: Matthew Franklin Sias
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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A 23-year veteran of emergency medical services, paramedic Matthew Sias took a detour in his career to pursue the death-care business and found a complementarity between two seemingly divergent careers. Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician is the record of some of the more memorable calls he has responded to through the years.
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OK
- By Judy on 03-25-21
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Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
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The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
By: Jennifer Worth
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All That Remains
- A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
- By: Sue Black
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.
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I wanted a science book about forensics. I got a mostly-memoir instead.
- By A Customer on 11-29-19
By: Sue Black
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Sealed With A Kill: A Shocking True Crime Love Story
- By: Rod Kackley
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Lust. Love. Murder. Repeat. Nurses’ aides Gwen and Cathy fell in love while working side-by-side at a nursing home near Grand Rapids, Mich. The young women sealed their love with a murderous bond, figuring if they killed together, neither one would be able to leave the other. Sealed With A Kill: A Shocking True Crime Love Story tells the story of two lonely women who became serial killers with a pact of mutually assured destruction. But then came a young, voluptuous virgin, Robin. Who would win Robin’s love? And more importantly, would Gwen’s and Cathy’s love survive? Sealed With A ...
By: Rod Kackley
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Escape to the Hummingbird Hotel
- Hummingbird Hotel, Book 1
- By: Daisy James
- Narrated by: Penny Andrews
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Hummingbird Hotel! When florist-to-the-stars Abbie Coleman catches a glimpse of her boyfriend through the window of Tiffany's, she couldn't be more excited. Keen to share her happiness, she organises a huge surprise party for all their family and friends… except things don't quite work out as she expected, and instead of planning a flower-filled wedding, she finds herself single, and fired from a job she loves.
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Fun read!
- By Michele R. Guzman on 04-25-25
By: Daisy James
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You All Grow Up and Leave Me
- A Memoir of Teenage Obsession
- By: Piper Weiss
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A highly unsettling blend of true crime and coming-of-age memoir - The Stranger Beside Me meets Prep - that presents an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of girlhood within Manhattan’s exclusive prep-school scene in the early 1990s, and a thoughtful meditation on adolescent obsession and the vulnerability of youth.
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too much time spent on the parodoxes of teen minds
- By Clyde on 05-12-18
By: Piper Weiss
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Beyond Suspicion
- By: ITN Productions
- Narrated by: Yinka Bokinni
- Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins
- Original Recording
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In this chilling true crime series, we tell the stories of pillars of the community who betrayed the trust of those around them and challenged what we all think about the people we’ve come to rely on. Police officers, teachers, doctors and nurses, we believe these people are here to protect us from harm, not cause it. This series looks at some of the most heinous crimes perpetrated by people in positions of trust and examines the ripples their actions left on their community.
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greatly supported
- By Jason Jourden on 05-28-25
By: ITN Productions
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Want Me
- A Sex Writer's Journey into the Heart of Desire
- By: Tracy Clark-Flory
- Narrated by: Tracy Clark-Flory
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Tracy Clark-Flory grew up wedged between fizzy declarations of "girl power" and the sexualized mandates of pop culture. It was "broken glass ceilings" and Girls Gone Wild infomercials. With a vague aim toward sexual empowerment, she set out to become what men wanted - or, at least, understand it. In her moving, fresh, and darkly humorous memoir, she shares the thrilling and heartbreaking events that led to discovering conflicting truths about her own desire, first as a woman coming of age and then as a veteran journalist covering the sex beat.
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Fantastic!
- By Nichole Lee on 04-26-21
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Never Suck a Dead Man's Hand
- Curious Adventures of a CSI
- By: Dana Kollmann
- Narrated by: Kate Zane
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Step past the flashing lights into the true scene of the crime with this frank, unflinching, and unforgettable account of life as a crime scene investigator. Whether explaining rigor mortis or the art of fingerprinting a stiff corpse on the side of the road, Dana Kollmann details her true, unvarnished experiences as a CSI for the Baltimore County Police Department.
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Overall great
- By Jennifer Guffey on 05-28-21
By: Dana Kollmann
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Gory Details
- By: Erika Engelhaupt
- Narrated by: Mari Weiss
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.
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Feels like old school Discovery channel
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-23
By: Erika Engelhaupt
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I Escaped from Auschwitz
- The Shocking True Story of the World War II Hero Who Escaped the Nazis and Helped Save Over 200,000 Jews
- By: Rudolf Vrba, Alan Bestic, Sir Martin Gilbert - foreword, and others
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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April 7, 1944 - This date marks the successful escape of two Slovak prisoners from one of the most heavily-guarded and notorious concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, fled over 100 miles to be the first to give the graphic and detailed descriptions of the atrocities of Auschwitz. Originally published in the early 1960s, I Escaped from Auschwitz is the striking autobiography of none other than Rudolf Vrba himself. Vrba details his life leading up to, during, and after his escape from his 21-month internment in Auschwitz.
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Best story from the Holocaust I’ve ever read!
- By Chuck812 on 01-10-21
By: Rudolf Vrba, and others
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to work in a crematorium, this is the book for you! But it is also a deep dive into what our society does with its dead, and traditional funerals--with their costs, toxins, and formalized grief--don't come off well (as they should not). So if you are making end-of-life decisions, you may also want to read this book.
But it is also a memoir of a young woman in her first job. She observes the different cultural practices of the dead's families, she ruminates on suicide and mental illness, the men she works with, and her youth in Hawaii.
All in all, if you like memoirs, as I do, and enjoy learning when you read, I think you will enjoy this book.
Great book
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I have been fascinated with death for a very long time. I love cemeteries and I've wanted to work in a funeral home for ages but frankly I don't want to work in sales. Caring for a person's body and, in some ways their memory, has always been held in a really divine place in my mind.
I am subscribed to AskAMortician and I love the channel. Caitlin does great work there so I knew I had to check out her books. I think I delayed it because I know she has a fondness for cremation. I'm not against it at all but it is important to me to be buried so I was concerned that this wouldn't strike home as hard.
It did further cement my desire to be buried but this book also let me know what pitfalls I would prefer to specify or navigate for my loved ones before I die. I don't want them to feel burdened into a fancy casket or whatever and I would prefer to pick my cemetery and headstone.
I feel like this book had a lot of impactful and important information. I'm impressed with the content and because I got to listen to it on Audible, I also got to listen to Caitlin tell the stories as she wanted them heard.
Seriously, if she ever has downtime or something and still wants to make a little money, she should narrate books. Her voice is PERFECT for it.
I'd recommend this book to anyone. If I have kids some day, this might be a good one for a roadtrip with a teenager that is curious about these things. Who knows. I loved it though and it deserves a 5/5 star review.
I'm So Glad I Read This
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Interesting. Intriguing. Overall great!
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What did you love best about Smoke Gets in Your Eyes?
I loved the writing and how thoroughly the author examined the subject of death. As Caitlin Doughty mentions in her book our culture doesn't want to discuss or deal with death if at all possible instead we take an avoidance approach to the process. Doughty shows that death, while difficult to deal with for the family left behind, is indeed a natural and inevitable part of life.What did you like best about this story?
I liked the author's personal experience and the stories that she shares about her career in the funeral and crematory industry. I appreciate her tasteful use of humor to lighten the subject matter.What about Caitlin Doughty’s performance did you like?
I thought she gave a great vocal performance and was the perfect voice to read this book. Sometimes when the author reads their own work the results aren't good, this was far from the case with Caitlin Doughty's reading she had just the right cadence and vocal inflection for the subject matter.What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
It was interesting to hear some of the alternatives to the typical embalming and casket burials.Any additional comments?
I'm interested in checking out her blog and website for additional information. I look forward to more books from this author in the future. Great read, intriguing, well researched and intelligent.Well Written and Informative
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What did you love best about Smoke Gets in Your Eyes?
The fact that it was an eye opener and a learning experience. You hear so many things but you never really know what it's like until someone like Doughty comes along and takes you by the hand. Fascinating.What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
No sugar coating here, good or bad you get the facts.Which scene was your favorite?
Couldn't choose just one.Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
I am always moved when children are involved. How can you be human and not be moved by the death of a child?Any additional comments?
I felt like I was facing South when I got this book on a whim. I was facing North when I finished it. Thank you for that Caitlin Doughty.Just goes to show you can't judge a book...
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Caitlin Doughty Fangirl!
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Refreshing perspective on mortality
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Such an AMAZING book!
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Absolutely Fantastic
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So good!
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