Check out if you want a trivial taste of afterlife adventures.
As someone who is a fan of learning different beliefs, traditions, and Jeopardy (Jennings is a long-time champ and host) I was excited to pick up 100 Places to See After You Die by Ken Jennings. The book is touted as a travel guide with sections of each “destination” explaining Meet the Locals and Best to Avoid. The sections are divided into Mythology, Religion, Books, Movies, Television, Music, and Theater, and Miscellaneous, so there is a taste of the afterlife across all sorts of areas in history.
I found the first section to be the most riveting, but the descriptions of each version of Hell eventually did unsettle me to the point of having to take a break from the book for a minute. It appears that every myth and religious belief dealing with Hell is just the grossest, most messed up thing that people could think up at the time and it’s very effective. After that, the book does get lighter – the books and television interpretations were both revealing and funny at times (as a Curb Your Enthusiasm fan I enjoyed reading about Larry David’s version of the afterlife). I’d recommend this book to fans of trivia and folks with a curious mind and an ample amount of patience.
