Obit

Obit
Author: Victoria Chang
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2020-04-07
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1619322188

The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020 Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 NPR's Best Books of 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, Longlist Frank Sanchez Book Award After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living. "When you lose someone you love, the world doesn’t stop to let you mourn. Nor does it allow you to linger as you learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart. Indeed, this daily indifference to being left behind epitomizes the unique pain of grieving. Victoria Chang captures this visceral, heart-stopping ache in Obit, the book of poetry she wrote after the death of her mother. Although Chang initially balked at writing an obituary, she soon found herself writing eulogies for the small losses that preceded and followed her mother’s death, each one an ode to her mother’s life and influence. Chang also thoughtfully examines how she will be remembered by her own children in time."—Time Magazine

Obits.

Obits.
Author: Tess Liem
Publisher: Coach House Books
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2018-10-16
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1770565736

In Obits. a speaker tries and fails to write obituaries for those whose memorials are missing, those who are represented only as statistics. She considers victims of mass deaths, fictional characters, and her own aunt, asking what does it mean to be an 'I' mourning a 'you' when both have been othered? Centring vulnerability, the various answers to this question pass through trauma, depression, and the experience of being a mixed-race queer woman.

The Economist Book of Obituaries

The Economist Book of Obituaries
Author: Keith Colquhoun
Publisher: Bloomberg Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

For 10 years, "The Economist" has included unique and original obituaries in a popular column. The selections are remarkable because of the people written about, the surprising lives they led, and the brilliant writing style. This volume gathers 200 of the best obituaries.

Obit

Obit
Author: Jim Sheeler
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2008-04-29
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0143113836

Like Everything I Really Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, or Tuesdays with Morrie, Obit is a wise and deeply moving book that illuminates the human condition. For ten years, Jim Sheeler has scoured Colorado looking for subjects whose stories he will tell for the last time. Most are unknowns, but that doesn't mean they're nobodies. Their obituaries are sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, and chock full of life lessons as taught by the people we all pass on the street every day. And thanks to Sheeler's brilliant and compassionate prose, it's not too late to meet them.

The Very Best of the Daily Telegraph Books of Obituaries

The Very Best of the Daily Telegraph Books of Obituaries
Author: Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Adult
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780330484701

The five Daily Telegraph Books of Obituaries have been both a critical and a popular success, winning plaudits from readers and reviewers alike. Here, gathered in one volume, is the very best of the witty, waspish and often wildly funny biographical short stories that are the mark of a Telegraph Obituary. Together they offer a richly unpredictable medley of twentieth-century lives, a deliciously idiosyncratic study in miniature, reflecting the last century at its most picturesque, poignant and absurd.

Obituaries in American Culture

Obituaries in American Culture
Author: Janice Hume
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2010-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1628469986

“Within the short period of a year, she was a bride, a beloved wife and companion, a mother, a corpse,” reported The National Intelligencer on the death of Elizabeth Buchanan in 1838. Such obituaries fascinate us. Few of us realize that, when examined historically, they can reveal not only information about the departed but also much about American culture and about who and what we value. They also offer hints about the way Americans view death. This book also will fascinate, for it surveys more than 8,000 newspaper obituaries from 1818 to 1930 to show what they reveal about our culture. It shows how, in memorializing individual citizens, obituaries make a public expression of our values. Far from being staid or morbid, these death notices offer a lively look at a changing America. Indeed, obits are little windows through which to view America's cultural history. In the nineteenth century, they spoke of a person's character, in the twentieth of a person's work and wealth. In the days when women were valued mainly in their relationships with men, their obituaries were about the men in their lives. Then, as now, important friendships make a difference, for sometimes a death has been deemed newsworthy only because of whom the deceased knew. In 1838 when a fifty-year-old Virginian named William P. Custis died “after a long and wasting illness,” readers of The Daily National Intelligencer learned about his generous hospitality, his sterling business principles, and his kindness as a neighbor and husband. Custis's obituary not only recorded the fact of his death but also celebrated his virtues. The newspaper obituary has a commemorative role. It distills the essence of a citizen's life, and it reflects what society values and wants to remember about the deceased. Throughout our history, these published accounts have revealed changing values. They provide a link between public remembrances of individuals and the collective memory of a great American past. In obits of yesteryear, men were brave, gallant, vigilant, bold, honest, and dutiful. Women were patient, resigned, obedient, affectionate, amiable, pious, gentle, virtuous, tender, and useful. Mining newspapers of New York City, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco, along with two early national papers, Niles' Weekly Register and The National Intelligencer, Janice Hume has produced a portrait of America, an entertaining history, and a revealing look at the things Americans have valued.

Relationship

Relationship
Author: Janice Greenwood
Publisher:
Total Pages: 74
Release: 2021-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781735783208

Love & Obits

Love & Obits
Author: John Ed Bradley
Publisher: Henry Holt
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1992
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780805016802

His newspaper career is in decline, his marriage dissolved, his mother dead and his father partially paralyzed in a car accident, but Joseph Burke still has his looks, though his life is a shambles. Relegated to "Death Row" (the Siberia of the Wash ington Herald newsroom) because he slept with a source who was the wife of a distinguished senator, Burke, at 33, writes nothing but obituaries. Will his father, who's smitten with a married Salvadoran nurse, walk again? Will love blossom with Laura, lovely widow of a prominent restaurateur whose obit he wrote? And just how closely does art follow life?

The Last Word

The Last Word
Author: Marvin Siegel
Publisher: William Morrow
Total Pages: 472
Release: 1997
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

You may not have heard of Julian Hill, for example, but he revolutionized our lives as the inventor of nylon, and you'll learn more about him in The Last Word.