Mobituaries : great lives worth reliving Cover Image

Book

Mobituaries : great lives worth reliving / Mo Rocca and Jonathan Greenberg ; illustrations by Mitch Butler.

Rocca, Mo, (author.). Greenberg, Jonathan, (author.). Butler, Mitch, (illustrator.).

Summary:

"Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries--reading about the remarkable lives of world leaders, captains of industry, innovators and artists. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. With Mobituaries--the book companion to the CBS podcast of the same name--the journalist, humorist, and history buff is righting that wrong, profiling the people who have long fascinated him--from the 20th century's greatest entertainer to sitcom characters gone all too soon to a shamefully forgotten Founding Father. Even if you know the names, you've never understood why they matter, until now. In these pages, Rocca chronicles the stories of the people who made a difference, but whose lives--for some reason or another--were never truly examined. There's Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense lit the fuse for the American Revolution--and whose paltry obit summed up his life thusly: "He had lived long, did some good, and much harm." And then there's screen icon Audrey Hepburn. She remains a household name, but how much do we know about her wartime upbringing and how it shaped the woman we fell in love with? And what about Billy Carter and history's unruly presidential brothers? Were they ne'er-do-well liabilities or secret weapons? As a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the host of The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation, Rocca is an expert researcher and storyteller. He draws on these skills here. With his rigorous reporting and trademark wit, Rocca brings these men and women splendidly back to life like no one else can. Mobituaries is an insightful and unconventional account of the people who made life worth living for the rest of us, one that asks us to think about who gets remembered, and why." --from book jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 9781501197628
ISBN: 1501197622
Physical Description: 375 pages : color illustrations, color map ; 24 cm
Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Publisher: [New York, New York] : Simon & Schuster, 2019.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 340-375).

Formatted Contents Note:

Death of the fantastic: dragons (3000 BC-1735) -- Death of a founding father: Thomas Paine (1737-1809) -- Forgotten forerunner: Elizabeth Jennings (1827-1901) -- Death of an influencer: Beau Brummell (1778-1840) -- Death of an American story: Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874) -- Death of representation: the black congressmen of Reconstruction (1870-1901) -- Forgotten forerunner: Lois Weber (1879-1939) -- Death of medieval science (800-1928) -- Death of a sports team: Los Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo (1937-1937) -- Forgotten forerunner: Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) -- Death of a country: Prussia (1525-1947) -- Death of a funny girl: Fanny Brice (1891-1951) -- Before and after: the pre-presidency: Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) and the post presidency: John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) -- Forgotten Forerunner: Moses Fleetwood Walker (1857-1924) -- Death of a diagnosis: homosexuality as a mental illness (1952-1973) -- Reputation assassination: a story of three killings: Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), and disco (1970-1979) -- Forgotten forerunner: the Washingtonian movement (1840-1860) -- Death of a brother: Billy Carter (1937-1988) -- Death of the entertainer: Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) -- Death of a square: Lawrence Welk (1903-1992) -- Death of an icon: Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) -- Forgotten forerunner: Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) -- Death of a career: Vaughn Meader (1936-2004) -- Died the same day: Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009) and Michael Jackson (1958-2009) -- Death of a leviathan: the station wagon (1949-2011) -- Forgotten forefunner: Hadrian's wall (128-1746) -- Celebrities who put their butts on the line: Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011), Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), and Lord Byron (1788-1824) -- Death of a tree: the live oaks of Toomer's corner (1937-2013) -- Dedication: Marcel "Jack" Rocca (1929-2004).