Hey, I'm Glenn Weldon, and this is NPR's Book of the Day. Humans have been imagining

the afterlife for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians elaborately prepared for it,

the Greeks and Romans told tales of a gloomy, cavernous underworld. The Norse people dreamt of

endless feasting and glorious battles. More recently, pop culture has started to do a lot of the

heavy lifting when it comes to envisioning what comes next. Think of Jeopardy Champion and host Ken

Jennings' new book, 100 places to see after you've died, as less a travel guide, and more a deep

dive into how human imagination continues to grapple with the great unknown. From the Iliad of Homer to the Springfield

of Homer Simpson, Jennings walks us through the many different ways we turn our vague

existential dread into something a lot more concrete and, usually, anyway, a lot less scary.

Here's all things considered Ari Shapiro.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods, NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people

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Jeopardy, Champion, and host Ken Jennings rose to fame for knowing nearly everything about anything.

But just like the rest of us, he stumped on the biggest mystery of all.

What happens after we die?

Presumably billions of people who had gone before now either know the answer or don't, depending.

And yet word has not gotten back to us.

Jennings explored everything from mythology to music and movies to gather as many visions as possible of the Great Unknown, and he collected his findings in a new book, A Hundred Places to See After You Die, a travel guide to the

afterlife. To help you on your way, he even included travel tips like getting around, souvenir

...