Had been looking forward to reading this book. Sadly it wasn’t for me. It just lacked a good plot to get you excited and wanting more. It was very slow paced and never picked up

A Poignant Piece.,,
A quirky and surprisingly often rather delightful travelogue as the author takes the reader on a tour of the British Isles, hearse bound, in search of the dead. It’s fascinating, informative and often amusing. A poignant piece and well worth the reader’s time.

I loved this, I love travel books but also love history and this combined them in a way that shouldn't have worked but in fact it really did. Would recommend

taphophile = tombstone tourist
Join Jack Cooke in his travelogue The End of the Road. In it, he tours Britain in a hearse seeking out memorials, tombs and unusual resting places.
Reading this was an absolute delight, I have already decided to buy a copy for my husband for Christmas as I kept him entertained reading out sections throughout the book (the coffin 'buried' in an attic to avoid gravediggers was one favourite).
I have a fascination with graves and memorials so I was onto a winner before I even started this book. But what I particularly enjoyed was the variety of resting places visited and the stories behind them. From crematoriums and graveyards to roadside memorials and ancient burials Jack had a story to tell about them all.
The thought of driving around Britain in a hearse also appealed to my more morbid nature, but I think personally I'd draw the line at sleeping on the coffin bed! A nice b&b is more my style!
If you are at all interested in reading about death and people's attitudes to how they wish to be remembered then this is the book for you.

Jack decided to down tools and travel around the UK hunting various graves and monuments. Fair enough but his mode of travel was an ancient hearse! A very quirky book indeed which almost feels as if the reader is sharing his various adventures on his obscure journey. There are interesting snippets/details, people he meets and his relationship with Enfield….the spider! You don’t even have to read every page if you aren’t interested in any particular area or person. I loved it and would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants something different for a change.

I love travelogue and found this one fascinating as it's centered around graveyard.
It's well written and I was fascinated by the storytelling and what I read.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Jack Cooke comes along as the contender for the next generation of travel writers. Here he decides to turn an old hearse into a tourer and accompanied by a spider he names Enfield, tours Britain's dead. When not sleeping with Enfield in the hearse he rests overnight among the dead. Although I question the chronology of the memoir (he seems to get around London with remarkable speed), his research into his destinations is meticulous teasing out forgotten stories of the deceased. Like all good travel writers he meets interesting characters along the way, my favourite was the man who fed Highland cattle chocolate digestives. A delightful read into this morbid subject.

As lockdown continues, so does my enjoyment of books like 'Then End of the Road', which allows me to travel with author Jack Cooke as he drives across Britain in a beat up hearse, exploring graveyards, cemeteries, memorials and other burial grounds.

Cooke's chosen sites of interest range from those I am extremely familiar with to some which I may otherwise have never heard of. Facts were occasionally shaky (no, Jeremy Bentham wasn't actually one of UCL's professors) and there were definitely lost opportunities to dive more deeply into Britain's complicated history with death and bodies, but on the other hand the breadth of stories and histories was impressive, and each and every one captured the imagination.

What I felt was missing from this book was, oddly enough, Cooke himself. While there is a brief sojourn into the personal when he remembers his beloved grandmother, and despite the fact the entire travel-memoir is written from his point of view, I never really felt like I understood why he was on this journey, what connected him to the places or the people he visited. I didn't get a sense of what drove his apparent morbid fascination.

A few too many missed opportunities for me to really love this book, but an enjoyable read all the same.

An ARC was generously provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I was drawn to this book as I have always been fascinated by graveyards. The author spent almost a month visiting graveyards and burial sites around Britain, touring in a rather decrepit hearse. Some are well known such as Brookwood Cemetery and others completely unknown to me. The author has carried out meticulous research into the various sites and their occupants. It was a fascinating, quirky read filled with facts I know I will be relaying at social occasions when we are allowed those again! The journey is depicted in such detail that you can really picture the locations, whether on the moors or Morecambe Bay. Not a macabre read but an interesting delve into differing attitudes to death and our social history regarding disposal of the dead. Tombs, sea burials, cremations, huge graveyards, solitary burial sites are all included and you can sense the authors true fascination with the various characters mentioned herein, I will be ordering a copy for a friend who also loves wandering around graveyards. All in all a fascinating read.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a digital copy in return for an honest review.

I enjoyed this little travelogue in which the author tours the UK in a clapped out hearse looking at tombs, cemeteries and burial sites. It was a very quaint and quirky ride, full of really interesting and unusual stories from history. The author offered a thoughtful approach to the subject matter whilst keeping it mostly light-hearted. Recommended for secret taphophiles everywhere.

I had absolutely no expectations for this book but as a person always roaming graveyards wherever i travel, I was happy to be allowed to read it.
Cooke wrote a very interesting book with many unheard stories and about people that have been forgotten by so many. I was very happy to read about Richard Burton whose life and doing are familiar to me but I had no knowledge of his grave.

This is an insightful, yet morbidly quirky book which I found entertaining, informative and thought-provoking. I would have liked to have more female people’s graves looked at.

What a fascinating read! Jack Cooke buys a clapped-out old hearse and, together with a spider he adopts en route, takes it on a tour of some of Britain’s most noteworthy graves and tombs.

There are some hilarious stories, some very sad stories and plenty of “I had no idea!” moments - Jack visits my home county of Derbyshire and even my childhood town and recounts stories that even I didn’t know! Also I will never wander through Waterloo Station again without thinking of the coffin conveyor-belt that once had its own track to take London’s dead out to the suburbs!

The book is incredibly well researched, and in the acknowledgements Jack lists some of the many books he has read in compiling his tour and account. A fantastic read for anyone who has loved spending a while looking through old graveyards and soaking up all the history within.

With thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow this was a fascinating and intriguing adventure in a hearse travelling around England looking at and being told many interesting facts about past graves, graveyards, cemeteries, crematorias and just everything to do with the dead. Some people had heared of others were new and fascinating. This was such a fun ride with an intriguing narrator it almost felt like a grim Bill Bryson except talking about death and past people. For me this evokes memories of visiting courtyards and graves whenever an opportunity presented itself on holiday, I as a child was intrigued and fascinated about all these peoples past lives and now only remembered on stone if that.

What a fascinating read,beautifullywritten. A mix of humour and pathos.
My head is now filled with 'did you know?' Facts. The stuff that good pub quizzes are made of.

A fascinating look into some of the famous, infamous and forgotten burial sites and graveyards in Great Britain that sees Jack Cooke travel around in a clapped out old hearse.

As well as an insight into these sites, we also get a peak at some of the wonderful landscapes Britain had to offer. My favourite location is actually the first that Jack visits, where we see nature reclaim the graveyard of All Saints Church in Dunwich, and the long buried dead are being sent into the North Sea below. Jack has a rather stoic nature that lends itself well to his journey. He's enthusiastic about death and the anthropological rituals that surround it, but never in a morbid way. It's curiosity at its best, and a need to pass on this knowledge in a respectful way. The writing is easy to get into, and never gets too dark to feel oppressive, given the subject matter. In fact, at times it feels very light hearted and fun as Jack toddles off around the country in this hearse that seems to facinate and horrify the public in equal measures.

Facinating read, full of facts and knowledge that has me clambering to get up the many steps of Whitby Abbey and beyond.

So you say you have an interest in old cemeteries, places that people ane time have forgotten? Then, boy, do I have the book for you. Cooke is also fascinated by the cities of the dead, so he sets off to explore the cemeteries, tombs and burial places across Britain. And what better way to travel than in a hearse? When you need a place to sleep for the night, there’s plenty of room for a snooze in the back. This is a fascinating book and Cooke is a magnificent guide to these too often forgotten and overlooked places.

If you love wandering around old cemeteries, reading the inscriptions and thinking about the people from the past, then this book is for you. If you love reading quirky travel adventures and learning about eccentric bits of history, this book is also for you. I really enjoyed it and already know it’s one of my top reads this year.

For almost a month and covering nearly 2000 miles, Jack Cooke drives around Britain in an old hearse, which he sometimes sleeps in. He visits a variety of tombs, memorials, burial sites and less conventional places of rest. He meets some unusual people – some living, some not. I admired his inquisitive spirit and slightly macabre sense of humour. The writing style is brilliant and exactly the kind of prose I like to read. A mixture of travel writing, nature writing, memoir and history, there is never a dull moment. I think that if a younger, more upbeat Bill Bryson was happy to travel Britain while using a hearse as a mobile home, this is the kind of book we’d get. There are a few black and white photographs, but I wouldn’t mind if there were no pictures at all, because the descriptions are enough.

Thank you to HarperCollins for the advance copy via NetGalley.

[NB. This review will appear on my blog on February 11th]

A rather unusual road trip but interesting nonetheless

It’s not everybody who would plan a road trip based on grave sites and use a hearse as a camper van but that’s what happens here. A trip around the countryside looking for lesser known gravesites with histories and unexpected tales. Like the coffin affixed to roof beams to prevent body snatchers, the giant who wanted anonymity and even an island of the dead. It’s no wonder that his dreams are so vivid!

It was an interesting delve into long forgotten celebrities of a sort but I do wonder if it is a little self-indulgent and how his wife feels as he disappears off into his funeral cortège of one.

This book also tells the story of communities, archaeology and natural history and his visit to Scotland sounds like just the tonic to revive ones proximity to life all around.

The end of the Road

What can I say about this book? Being a taphophile (someone who enjoys looking at graves) myself I was very happy when Haprer Collins granted me a copy of Jack Cookes book “The End of the Road” to read before it will be published in February.
The book is both a tourist guide for the grave-hunters and a very personal travelog of a man travelling across Britain in search of the dead in a hearse (Is there a more fitting vehicle for this adventure? I think not.)

Some months ago I read about another trip around Britain, in which the dead played a huge role. But while Edward Parnell describes the landscapes of Britain as places of hauntings and dips into their dark atmosphere, Cooke’s style is full of life and adventure. The graves he is searching for are not necessarily the big ones that everyone knows about. Instead he tells about the weird, the overly stylish or the absolute remote ones that often find themselves in the backyards of houses or wedged between a highway and a place of industry. They are often remains and reminders of times long past.

What makes this book work for me is the dry humour and the many encounters with people living nearby (or having a big graveside in their backyard). Jack Cooke didn’t shy away from climbing graveyard fences at night or swimming across remote Scottish lochs to visit a particular grave. I admire his commitment to the cause - I don’t think I would swim in such cold waters and rather wait until I find a boat.

The only downside to this funny and wonderful book is the fact that it ended too soon and invoked a deep longing in me to go out, travel to Britain again and to look for some of the gravesites the author describes. I found myself constantly googling the things he describes, making up a sizable wish list that will keep me occupied for a long time.
Thank you to Harper Collins and netgalley to let me read this wonderful book and thanks to the author for having written it.

This review will be published on goodreads after the publication in English and in an extended version in German on my blog gothicreads.de.

Hot on the heels of Peter Ross’ A Tomb with a View (which I own but am yet to read) comes another book for taphophiles – The End of the Road by Jack Cooke.
This volume's subtitle is "A journey around Britain in search of the dead", which pretty much sums up what it is all about. Cooke's book is, in fact, a travelogue of sorts that sees the author embark on a tour of graveyards and final resting places across the UK, starting from Dunwich, where the historical cemetery beside the abandoned All Saints’ Church is being eroded and gobbled up by the North Sea, and ending, a month and two thousand miles later, in Orkney. Cooke’s means of transport, the equivalent of Charon’s boat, is, quite appropriately, a vintage, second-hand (or maybe third or fourth hand) hearse, itself nearing the “end of the road”. His companions are the ghosts of the dead and a spider hitchhiker whom Jack affectionately names Enfield.

Cooke’s quirky trip takes in a variety of burial sites – from more conventional graveyards, churchyards and cemeteries (including London’s Highgate and the Glasgow Necropolis), to prehistoric barrows, the “plague cottages” of Eyam and even a show cave which became a burial chamber and memorial following the tragic death of a speleologist.

Cooke is an endearing narrator, combining trivia and historical facts with personal reflection. There is often an element of self-deprecating humour as we watch him scaling cemetery gates, blocking traffic on the highway, or offering lifts to strangers who scurry away in shock. However, what is particularly impressive in what is, ultimately, a book about death, is how uplifting a read it turns out to be. As, at the end of every day, Cooke makes his bed for the night – either in his hearse, or on a grave site – one is struck by a sense of calm and peace, as if the very fact of going to sleep amongst the ghosts is a respectful act of communion with the departed.

The End of the Road is my first read for 2021 and it is, admittedly, a strange start to my reading year. But who thought a trip in a hearse would be so enjoyable?