100 Places to See After You Die

April 15, 2023
Everything you always wanted to know about the afterlife but were too alive to ask. Jennings, famous Jeopardy! champion and author of multiple bestselling books, catalogs 100 conceptions of an afterlife conjured from mythology, world religions, books, movies, TV, music, theater, and beyond. Sources include such landmark depictions of heaven and hell as those in Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost as well as in lesser-known texts. Amusingly, Jennings presents his compilation as a sort of guidebook for tourists. There are sidebars on "Where To Stay" (in Dante's Inferno, that's the First Circle, "but it's crowded and books up fast"), "Getting Around" (in Hades, via Charon, the ferryman of the dead), and "Eating and Drinking." In ancient Egypt, "In-Room Dining" for the pharaohs includes a personal supply of mummified eats. Popular-culture portrayals of the afterlife include usual suspects like It's a Wonderful Life and The Twilight Zone but also more obscure fare such as "Heaven," the Talking Heads song about "a place where nothing ever happens." For many cultures, death leads to a literal kind of travel to the afterlife, a journey, often across water. Certain figures recur in these otherworldly voyages, including all manner of ghosts and "psychopomps," or "immortal guides." In the origins of Haitian Voodoo, death is a journey back in time to the "Mother Continent" of the enslaved population. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, one must "clear customs," a series of floating stations, on the way to heaven. Jennings also explores Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, Marvel and DC Comics, Disneyland rides, Twin Peaks, the network comedy The Good Place, video games, and Dungeons and Dragons. The most resonant "No-Frills Accommodations" may be found in Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, where "each room has a door, but it usually won't open," and "Hell is--other people." An entertaining, amusing collection of a wide variety of visions of the afterlife.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2023
In his latest offering, prolific author and Jeopardy host Jennings profiles over 100 places for readers to visit after their time on earth is over. The entries run four or five pages, and browsing or skipping around is encouraged. Jennings conveys substantial amounts of information in his usual witty style, including lots of facts and zero proselytizing. There are seven categories: Mythology (mostly gruesome scenarios, with the exception of the Celts), Religion (19 faiths), Books (Paradise Lost, the Edenic Aslan's Country of Narnia), Movies (The Sixth Sense, Field of Dreams, Beetlejuice), Television (The Simpsons, Larry David, Star Trek), Music and Theater (Hadestown, The Heaviside Layer), and a Miscellaneous group encompassing comics, video games, Disney attraction Mister Toad's Wild Ride, Hieronymus Bosch's painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, and a folktale about long spoons simultaneously claiming to have Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist roots. There's an index but no notes, but seriously, who's going to argue with Ken Jennings? This provides a lot of fun for trivia buffs and other curious souls.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 10, 2023
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.

October 1, 2023

"It's never too early to investigate your options," states Jeopardy host Jennings (Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture) in this offbeat guide to imagined post-death tourism. Grouping afterlife destinations by their origin (mythology; religion; television), Jennings follows each general overview of a location with notes on top attractions, traveler tips, "Meet the Locals," and, in some cases, what to eat, how to dress, and where to stay. Jennings's playful tone is applied equally to religion (Shintoism's Yomi), literature (Dante's Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno), and Frank Capra's heaven, home to Clarence, of It's a Wonderful Life. VERDICT Readers who don't mind some irreverence can imaginary-armchair-travel to Valhalla (Norse mythology), the Heaviside Layer (Cats), the Djalia (Black Panther's Wakanda), and the Outer Planes (Dungeons & Dragons).

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