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Book Summary and Reviews of 100 Places to See After You Die by Ken Jennings

100 Places to See After You Die by Ken Jennings

100 Places to See After You Die

A Travel Guide to the Afterlife

by Ken Jennings

  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Published:
  • Jun 2023, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From New York Times bestselling author and legendary Jeopardy! host and champion Ken Jennings comes a hilarious travel guide to the afterlife, exploring to die for destinations from literature, mythology, and pop culture.

Ever wonder which circles of Dante's Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where's the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism's Lord Vishnu, or avoid the flesh-eating river serpents in the Klingon afterlife? What hidden treasures can be found off the beaten path in Hades, Valhalla, or TV's The Good Place? Find answers to all those questions and more about the world(s) to come in this eternally entertaining book from Ken Jennings.

Written in the style of iconic bestselling travel guides, Jennings wryly outlines journeys through the afterlife, as dreamed up over 5,000 years of human history by our greatest prophets, poets, mystics, artists, and TV showrunners. This comprehensive index of 100 different afterlife destinations was meticulously researched from sources ranging from the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern-day pop songs, video games, and Simpsons episodes. Get ready for whatever post-mortal destiny awaits you, whether it's an astral plane, a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape, or the baseball diamond from Field of Dreams.

Fascinating, funny, and irreverent, this "gung-ho travel guide to Heaven, Hell, and beyond" (The New Yorker) will help you create your very own bucket list—for after you've kicked the bucket.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"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." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Everything you always wanted to know about the afterlife but were too alive to ask...An entertaining, amusing collection." —Kirkus Reviews

"Jennings conveys substantial amounts of information in his usual witty style, including lots of facts and zero proselytizing...a lot of fun for trivia buffs and other curious souls." —Booklist

"A gung-ho travel guide to Heaven, Hell, and beyond...Jennings approaches his subject with a wry, ready-to-be-delighted open-mindedness." —New Yorker

"Entertaining." —USA Today

"Light and irreverent... . long on knowledge and mercifully short on claims about the grand truth of things." —Washington Post

"Ken Jennings knows about everything. That now includes the afterlife." —NPR

This information about 100 Places to See After You Die was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Ken Jennings Author Biography

Photo: Faith Jennings

Ken Jennings is the New York Times bestselling author of Brainiac, Maphead, Because I Said So!, and Planet Funny. In 2020, he won the "Greatest of All Time" title on the quiz show Jeopardy! and in 2022, he succeeded Alex Trebek as a host of the show. He is living in Seattle during his mortal sojourn, but his posthumous whereabouts are still to be determined.

Link to Ken Jennings's Website

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  • Planet Funny jacket
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