Genealogy Books - The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (P.S.)

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: "I write about dead people!"
Comment: It's difficult to imagine an entire book dedicated to telling the average reader about those folks
who write obituaries for a living. This book, however, takes on that daunting task, and fully
delivers, with information and humor. Those of us who don't do this kind of writing can't imagine
that it is an intense experieance for the writer, especially those who sytrive to give the reader a
close insight into the person who has died. We learn about the newspapers that contain the "best"
obituaries, and also those writers who are considered at the top of this unusual pyramid. If you
want to be informed, and entertained, about a very unusual subject, you can't go wrong with this
book.

Customer Rating:

Summary: It's the stories, stupid
Comment: Marilyn Johnson proves that good stories are the product of good reporting. Her inquiry into the art
of the obituary takes her to far-flung corners of the globe,and she gets the goods wherever she
goes. Through her, we meet some of the finest obituarists on the planet, and we learn how they
capture and tell the stories of lives great and small. This is a jewel of a book, joyfully free of
typographical and grammatical errors. It has been written and edited with care, and it holds your
attention from the first page to the last.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Short stories of the dead...
Comment: Who could predict that the obituaries would become the most widely read portion of today's
newspapers. Just as Mary Roach's "Stiff" explored what happens to your body after you're dead,
Marilyn Johnson's "Dead Beat" opens our eyes to the written legacy that the obituarist
leaves--essentially the short story of a life. There is an art to this, as revealed in some of the
delightful excerpts in her book--the best obits don't just recite vital statistics, but rather
spotlight the "specialness" (quirky habits, unusual talents, life-changing moments, etc) of the
individual as gleaned from interviews with families and friends. I like the idea that the obit
focuses the reader's attention on the life of one person, whether famous or not, and then demands an
acknowledgement of the loss of that particular bundle of DNA, never to be duplicated. Full of wit
and thoughtful exploration of a rarely discussed subject, this book is a real winner.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Finding Joy On the Obituary Page
Comment: "Vital reading for anyone who knows a dead person or is likely to become one"
(I wish I could
take credit for that comment. Honesty requires that I ascribe it to Lisa Grunwald, an author who
states such praise on the book jacket.) This author presents the reader with a humorous survey of
selected obituaries and the stories of those journalists who write them, collect them and (oddly
enough) meet at conventions to discuss their craft. Additionally the author presents an exhaustive
compendium of "how to" search obituaries (and obituary information) on the Internet. This is a
great story about how the obituaries are written and where that "writing form" may very well be
headed.
A perverse pleasurable read.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Up Beat
Comment: A nicely written book by an author who clearly loves her subject. As much about the art of writing
as on the public reporting of death.

The jacket design by Milan Bozic deserves praise
for capturing the spirit of the book. Its tombstone physical shape is also a nice touch.

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