How To Read A Graveyard: Journeys In The Company of the Dead

'...diversity is deftly woven into a meaningful whole [and] erudition mixes with emotions as the author's journeys lead him to consider his own life and death, his family, and the world around him in a new light...': Michael Caines, Wall Street Journal

'...stuffed full of fascination...on every page there is an alarming, amusing or diverting piece of information about the burial of the dead' : Craig Brown's Book of the Week, Mail on Sunday

'...what distinguishes Stanford's account from more factual graveyard guides is its subjectivity: this is a history of burial traditions that interleaves frankly with its author's own concerns about dying...': Thomas Marks: Daily Telegraph 

A personal, reflective but never gloomy journey round a dozen graveyards in Britain and Europe, tracing the history of how we have treated the dead, and what we have thought about death itself.  From a pagan necropolis in ancient Rome, through medieval English churchyards and the war graves of Northern France, and right up to date with a modern eco-cemetery, this travelogue aims to answer every question you've ever had about burial customs. And to pose a few more about a contemporary society that likes to imagine itself immortal.

Published in London by Bloomsbury in 2013. Hardback ISBN 978144117977. Paperback ISBN 9781472909183