OK, so the book feels hot off the press, but with only a year between the actual events and the books’ release - less than 12 months for all that writing, re-writing, revision, editing, fact-checking, and proofreading, not to mention all the marketing and promotion - I can’t help finding the rush a little unnerving.

In one chapter, the author goes to the funeral of someone who died in August 2005. The production process seems to have been super streamlined, too. In addition, e-ads for the book have appeared on and bookseller sites, and review copies dispatched to all the hundreds of bloggers who write about books. There’s an author website where you can download Remember Me e-cards featuring pictures of the cemeteries Cullen visited an author blog and discussion board, and downloadable banners. Collins, the imprint responsible for Remember Me, apparently decided to forgo a traditional print-based publicity campaign, and, instead, the book has been widely promoted online, as well as through the usual radio interviews and book signings. Interestingly, considering its subject, the book has been heavily pushed. In Remember Me, the book that emerged from her assignment, Cullen takes a look at the ways Americans today, and baby-boomers in particular, are “re-inventing the rites of dying.” In 2003, journalist Lisa Takeuchi Cullen was commissioned by her editors at Time Magazine to look into new trends in funeral services.

Remember Me by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen