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Book Reviews of After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses

After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses
After the Funeral The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses
Author: Edwin Murphy
ISBN-13: 9780760709245
ISBN-10: 0760709246
Publication Date: 1998
Pages: 244
Rating:
  • Currently 2.9/5 Stars.
 17

2.9 stars, based on 17 ratings
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

7 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 254 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
*laugh* There are so many books I received before this one, but I couldn't resist starting this one. And I couldn't stop, I had to keep reading. I really intended to put it aside and finish it later, but it kept calling to me.

This was a fascinating, sometimes horrifying (in the "oh my word, they did WHAT?" way), often amusing book. It journals the trials and travels of famous corpses, and corpse bits. Heads, hearts, ashes, as well as the entire body are traced through all sorts of odd and strange events.

The reasoning behind the corpse-stealing, the head-hunting, etc is fascinating. Sometimes the enemies stole the body. Sometimes the friends did. Sometimes random guards did. A peaceful burial is not guarnteed!

The writing style was smooth and easy to read, giving enough information to keep it interesting, but not so much the stories bogged down. I do wish the author hadn't felt the need to italize "after the funeral" every time he used it, but that's a minor point. And he just couldn't resist a pun here and there, but there were not too many....just enough that when you let your guard down, another appeared!
reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
A quirky read - not the kind of book you sit down and read cover to cover, but instead, one you pick up to read one story and then come back to. Almost reads like a cheesy TV show (with lines sort of like, "And then we'll know, what happened, AFTER THE FUNERAL!") but has a bunch of really interesting and (sorry to say) amusing stories about dozens of people whose bodies weren't laid to rest whole.
LM avatar reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 24 more book reviews
It was a fun book!
CrabEater avatar reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 51 more book reviews
I think the premise behind this book is very entertaining. It is interesting to see where some famous people do end up when they die. It was a good book in that respect. I think the one drawback that keeps this book from greater appeal is that the famous people are not those that younger people might recognize. With that aside, if offbeat books about corpses and their misadventures trips your trigger, give this one a go.
amjones1 avatar reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 79 more book reviews
Interesting concept, but very poorly written.
StrawberryOES avatar reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 86 more book reviews
This was a very interesting book at the beginning, but as I got further and further into it, the stories all seemed to sound the same. I did enjoy reading where famous people's body parts went after they died, but about 3/4 of the way through I put it down for good. You may like it to the end?
jade19721 avatar reviewed After the Funeral: The Posthumous Adventures of Famous Corpses on + 115 more book reviews
After the funeral is not a bad book per se it's just that at times it can be a tedious because it was not very well written in my opinion. The book does not flow and it seems choppy. If you can deal with that than I guess you are ok. The subject matter is quite interesting. You would think that once someone is dead than thats it. They lay the body to rest sccording to the wishes of the deceased or the deceased's family and that is the end of things. Well you would be suprised at what some people will do to a dead body especially if they are famous or it means extra money. Some of the stories kinda gave me a chuckle considering what these people did. Here are a few examples: Writer Mary Shelley buried her husband, but kept his heart with her. Oliver Cromwell, who was not very well liked, was laid to rest in 1658. His enemies and those that despised him decided in 1661 that it was time to exhume his body and punish him the way he should have been punished before he died. First they hung the corpse and left it there for several hours. Next they cut off his head and then paraded the corpse around town. I guess that will teach Ollie the next time around. If you are one of those people that like the odd trivia or like to wander the cemetries in search of famous graves than this is the book for you.