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Summary: De mortuis nil nisi bonum
Comment: A friend of mine sent me this book to include in my annual write-up of the "most inadequate blurbs."
OK, this one is by Westword, whatever that is, and it reads in its entirety: "Many of Sheeler's
subjects are lifeless, but his prose certainly isn't." As a blurb, it's distinctive on two counts:
you don't see many books blurbed with the equivalent of "Not Lifeless!" and secondly, as a sentence,
it has the most misleading use of the word "Many" I've ever seen. What do you think Westword was
intending by using the word "Many." If he had read the book he would have known that it is a large
collection of obituaries. There aren't a few live people mixed in for variety. No, it's all dead,
all the time--I should say, all lifeless all the time. Anyhow I got to reading the book and I must
say, it is certainly worth a read.

Jim Sheeler is no Alden Whitman (the man who for so
many years wrote obituaries for the NY Times of the most famous people on earth). I take it that he
prides himself on doing the little people, the meek of the earth, and his beat is Denver, Boulder,
and the surrounding lands of Colorado. I don't know how he selects his subjects, but he writes on
and on about their lives, their families, the things they did over the years, and how sad it is that
they've died. I found myself sniffling a bit, especially over the young ones, one boy died at 15, a
budding opera buff and enthusiast who had a fatal heart ailment, or another boy, the bad boy of his
little village, who died overseas serving his country.

But strangely I found myself
growing cold to the deaths of a whole pack of country folk. It's Sheeler's fault, he just doesn't
seem able to animate these people, make them come to life for the reader. All of them have the same
format, and about the same number of words, so a profile of a nonagenarian clocks in at about the
same length as a child, giving rise to the suspicion that, with all his bruited tenderness,
Sheeler's just cranking them out like loaves of bread. And sorry, despite the subtitle, I didn't
feel the "extraordinariness" of any of these people's lives. Says on the front of the book he won
the Pulitzer Prize. For what? I ask. Was it Colorado's turn?

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Summary: OBIT
Comment: OBIT. Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People who Led Extraordinary Lives. This book is reminiscent of
well written Readers Digest short stories. Obit will force the reader into reflection on one's own
fleeting life. When the time comes and none shall escape it. Will the last things said about you
just be a "footnote on the backside of life"? Or will the reading of your obituary bring a tear to
a strangers face?

Customer Rating:

Summary: An Obit Collection Meant to Be Savored
Comment: Jim Sheeler notes in his introduction: "The death beat is supposed to be the worst job in the
newsroom. For those of us who understand, it's journalism's best kept secret -- a place of raw
emotion and endless wisdom, a place where you find lessons of life more brilliant that anything
you'll find from the traditionally designated 'noteworthy' people who usually appear in the rest of
the newspaper." I've been writing obits for years, yet after reading this book I now aspire to cover
the death beat like Sheeler does -- with compassion and grace.

The deceased are the
main focus of each chapter, but Sheeler is there too, buried in the spaces between each inked line.
A master wordsmith and medium, he has the uncanny ability to give a voice to ghosts and record their
legacy. Read this collection, and you too will hear the whispered tales of nurses and bartenders,
pilots and farmers, mountain makers and carousel caretakers.

Take your time, though.
"Obit" is simply too rich to read in one sitting. This collection of "inspiring stories of ordinary
people who led extraordinary lives" is meant to be savored. As such, I devoted the last half hour of
each day to a different deceased man or woman, then carried their stories into Morpheus' realm.
There they inspired my dreams. And when I woke up, hours later, the dead were alive once again,
filling my mind with thoughts of love, loss, courage and generosity.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Brief yet heartwarming portrayals of men and women who led energetic, compassionate, sometimes humorous, always shining lives
Comment: Pulitzer Prize-winning feature writer Jim Sheeler presents Obit: Inspiring Stories of Ordinary
People who Led Extraordinary Lives, an anthology of brief yet heartwarming portrayals of men and
women who led energetic, compassionate, sometimes humorous, always shining lives. Each biographical
portrayal is only a few pages long - yet that is more than enough space to expand beyond the
traditional printed obituary and reveal the wonder, the color, and the personality infused into each
individual's unique life. Obit is ultimately an anthology celebrating life, not death, and an
emotionally moving read whether explored a few pages at a time or all at once.

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