Alberta writer Nancy Millar believes one of the best ways to explore history is to visit the dead – not literally, of course, but in graveyards. In Once Upon a Tomb, the nation-wide follow-up to her Prairie cemetery book, Remember Me As You Pass By, Millar travels all 10 provinces plus northern Canada in search of good headstone stories.

She finds plenty: poignant epitaphs, hysterically funny memorials, famous graves, mystery tombs, regional burial customs, and historical anecdotes sleuthed from tombstone clues. Millar is also the first to admit she missed plenty too.

What she does find is neatly arranged by province, each given a thematic title and “epitaph” summing up the prevailing attitude toward the graveyards. Her travelogue is cheery, with comments on scenery, weather, the people she meets. The gee-whiz prose can be annoying taken in large doses, but this is a pick-up-put-down book, full of photos and tidbits. Anyone who, like Millar, enjoys a cemetery ramble will be happy to have this book on the coffee table or by the tub.