The Dead Beat, (Paperback)

from satyridae

Almost as much fun as reading obituaries. Either you're a junkie, and you'll love this book, or you'll be left cold by it. Me, I'm an addict, and this book fed that addiction and gave me pointers on how to find still more obituaries. I didn't know there even was a newsgroup called alt.obituaries ...

from varielle

Obituaries are a slice of history. Marilyn Johnson chronicles the rise of the modern obituary complete with intersecting lives, forgotten history, and the fascinating patterns involved in the demise of the obscure and the famous. A quirky and fascinating read that will have you scanning the obit ...

from maggiereads

As we age, some things just naturally occur: we lose a little hair, we wrinkle a little around the eyes and we begin to hold the newspaper further away, as we read the obituary page. Yes, the aging process gently leads us to the daily reading of obituaries. In our 20s and 30s, we just glance over...

from oldman

The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson is a book about obituaries. It is not a laugh-out-loud compendium of funny, sarcastic or silly obituaries all in a catalogue form. It tells the thinking, feeling and prose (or poetry) used to make an obituary. Obituaries are recent additions to the culture, and ar...

from MontzaleeW

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by by Marilyn Johnson is a book I picked up from the library by chance. I am a nurse and one of the odd habit nurses have is looking at obituaries, weird, I know. We check to see if we know anyone we helped, especia...