100 Places to See After You Die
A Travel Guide to the Afterlife
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author and legendary Jeopardy! host and champion Ken Jennings comes a hilarious travel guide to the afterlife, exploring to die for destinations from literature, mythology, and pop culture.
Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism’s Lord Vishnu, or avoid the flesh-eating river serpents in the Klingon afterlife? What hidden treasures can be found off the beaten path in Hades, Valhalla, or TV’s The Good Place? Find answers to all those questions and more about the world(s) to come in this eternally entertaining book from Ken Jennings.
Written in the style of iconic bestselling travel guides, Jennings wryly outlines journeys through the afterlife, as dreamed up over 5,000 years of human history by our greatest prophets, poets, mystics, artists, and TV showrunners. This comprehensive index of 100 different afterlife destinations was meticulously researched from sources ranging from the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern-day pop songs, video games, and Simpsons episodes. Get ready for whatever post-mortal destiny awaits you, whether it’s an astral plane, a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape, or the baseball diamond from Field of Dreams.
Fascinating, funny, and irreverent, this “gung-ho travel guide to Heaven, Hell, and beyond” (The New Yorker) will help you create your very own bucket list—for after you’ve kicked the bucket.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jeopardy! former contestant and current host Jennings (Planet Funny) explores the afterlife as depicted in mythology, religion, literature, and popular culture in this informative and irreverent faux guidebook. The advice touches on "when to go" (the Chinese underworld of Diyu is best visited during the "full moon of the seventh month"), which celebrities one might spot (in South Park's "smoky, lava-filled" hell, the list includes Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy), and recommendations for food and lodging. While Jennings's tongue is firmly planted in his cheek throughout—he advises at the outset, "It's never too early to... start making travel plans. Eternity is an awfully long time to end up in the wrong place"—he ventures beyond the humorous to explore broader questions about death, as when he examines how notions of the afterlife mirror a culture's living realities. For example, when China was "building out its own massive civil service" during the Qin dynasty, the deceased were often "buried with documents addressed to afterlife registrars, certifying their possessions, legal status, tax exemptions." Jennings's breezy approach and exhaustive knowledge allow him to range from Twin Peaks to Dante's Divine Comedy with ease, and even casual readers who dip in intermittently will be enlightened. Anyone curious about the great beyond should take a look.
