In Botswana, there is a saying that even the greatest calamities can induce laughter (24). Unity Dow and Matt Essex capture this dissonant spirit of tragedy and hope in their new book Saturday is for Funerals. The title of the book derives from the alarming regularity with which the people of Botswana attended funerals in the mid-1990s. The rampant rate of HIV/AIDS, combined with a lack of treatment options, resulted in such a high death rate that each and every Saturday was reserved for funeral-going. Dow, a High Court judge and writer, and Essex, a professor of health sciences at Harvard University, trace the spread, treatment, and socio-cultural consequences of HIV/AIDS in Botswana. The authors detail the ways in which the crisis has been drastically curtailed through the work of individuals, researchers, and policy.