Books and Bones, Bones and Books

As you, my devoted followers, may have noticed: I like books. 

I am what some people might call a "book person", or a "bibliophile" if you will.

This love of books is in fact one of my favourite qualities about myself.

However, it does get me into trouble when it comes to my time management.

Being a book lover is a very, very consuming passion.

And let me tell you, working in a book store definitely doesn't help!

Especially when the Anthropology section is on the floor I work on...

Due to that, I spend a lot of time "shelving" and "tidying" (ie. scoping out interesting books I'd like to eventually read) in the Anthro section, and there is one book I've gone back to time and time again. This book is called "The Bone Woman" and is by Clea Koff.

Thanks Bookmanager.com!

Have you ever spotted an item while you were shopping (shoes, a shirt, a picture/poster) and wanted it, but not bought it at the time? Maybe you were in a rush, or maybe you couldn't make up your mind. Either way, you leave. And then you think about it. All. The. Time. Then, rather than going and purchasing said item, you go and visit it. That's right, visit. Even though you know actually buying it would make you very happy.

That is what I do with this book. I'll take it off the shelf and flip through it occasionally, I even put it on hold once, but I have yet to actually go through with the purchase.

Then last week I was looking through Erin's blog, and I read her most recent post. In it she mentions The Bone Woman, and I think this is the final push I need to go into work and actually buy myself a copy!

Thinking about The Bone Woman always makes me think about another book that I have been visiting with for years:

Thanks Bookmanager.com!

These two books deal with different sides of the same coin. First you have Romeo Dallaire's well known account of his role in the atrocities which unfolded in the Rwanadian genocide. Then comes The Bone Woman, in which Koff, a 23 year old forensic anthropologist from the USA, is sent to Rwanada to work unearthing mass graves on a team for the United Nations.

Neither of these books are light reads, and I suppose this is part of why I have yet to purchase them. Not that I have difficulty reading about death (even gruesome death) in general. As I pointed out in my first post Dead Men Do Tell Tales is one of my favourite books! (On a side note, the only portion of that book that got to me was the description of the crematorium and cremation process- weird no?).
 
But something about mass graves really, really gets to me. I think it is to do with the senseless disregard for human life on such a huge scale, and the fact that the bodies are then literally dumped into a pit like garbage. I find the thought of even a murderer who brutally kills someone and then hides the body under a floor or in the forest to be somehow better, because they at least recognizes that the body is important enough to hide. Mass graves just feel to me like a lazy garbage disposal system. 

Thanks visualphotos.com

I think that work such as Clea Koff does is absolutely amazing. Giving personhood back to a jumbled pile of bones, and bringing some sense of rest to the families of the victims is an incredible vocation. I also find it really interesting (and wonderful) that the United Nations places such high importance on sending teams into places like Rwanda and Bosnia and Croatia to identify bodies of victims. The fact that the organization which strives to attain World peace is willing to spend time and money on returning remains to families is really special in my mind. And it speaks to the importance of funerary rituals in general that such projects exist.