The New York Times comes each morning and never fails to deliver news of the important dead. Every day is new; every day is fraught with significance. I arrange my cup of tea, prop up my slippers. Obituaries are history as it is happening. Whose time am I living in? Was he a success or a failure, lucky or doomed, older than I am or younger? Did she know how to live? I shake out the pages. Tell me the secret of a good life!Where else can you celebrate the life of the pharmacist who moonlighted as a spy, the genius behind Sea Monkeys, the school lunch lady who spent her evenings as a ballroom hostess? No wonder so many readers skip the news and the sports and go directly to the obituary page. The Dead Beat is the story of how these stories get told. Enthralled by the fascinating lives that were marching out of this world, Marilyn Johnson tumbled into the obits page to find out what made it so lively. She sought out the best obits in the English language and chased the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. Surveying the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms, surviving a mass gathering of obituarists, and making a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all, Marilyn Johnson leads us into the cult and culture behind the obituary page. The result is a rare combination of scrapbook and compelling read, a trip through recent history and the unusual lives we don't quite appreciate until they're gone.
玛里琳·约翰逊(Marilyn Johnson),专栏作家。曾为《生活》等杂志撰稿,并担任过《君子》等杂志的编辑,她的作品散见于这些杂志和其他著名刊物。
玛里琳·约翰逊曾经为戴安娜王妃、杰奎琳·奥纳西斯、伊莉莎白-泰勒、凯瑟琳·赫本、约翰尼·卡什、鲍伯·霍普和马龙 白兰度等著名人物撰写讣告。很多读者以阅读她写的讣告为乐,并评价说:“如果她可以给我写上一段讣告,我即便现在死了,似乎也值得了。”甚至还打趣道:“我一定不能让她比我先死,不然就找不到更适合的人给我写讣告了。”
【读品】罗豫/文 中国人对死亡有种莫名的敬畏和回避,讣告也是千篇一律:姓名,出生年月,政治面貌,死亡原因,生平简介。我们的讣告像尸体一样僵硬,而任何敢于给这种文体注入活泼元素的行为,也被认为是像随意翻动尸体一样忤逆。 于是很难想象,在英语文化中,讣告像服装一...
评分我承认当初买这本书是出于某种恶趣味——“先上讣告,后上天堂”,这样的书名会令许多人看一眼就避讳不迭,也会令像我这样的内心阴暗之人两眼发光。在银行大厅等候的时候翻开第一页,从此便欲罢不能地读下去。其实本书的行文并没有我所预期的那般黑暗歌特,当中也并没有涉及太...
评分最近读书比较挑剔,专挑一些自己空白知识点的书来读,看到这本《先上讣告后上天堂》很是好奇,拿起来读,就没再放下,很有趣的阅读。 关于讣闻,国内可借鉴的东西太少,据我所知,国内有讣闻版的报纸不多,而且没形成特色,也没有专业的讣闻作者,多为记者采写,太客...
评分一本关于讣告的有趣的书。 作者自己就是写讣告的一位名人。书中序言道: 她曾经为戴安娜王妃、杰奎琳.奥纳西斯、伊莉莎白.泰勒、凯瑟琳.赫本、约翰尼.卡什、鲍伯.霍普和马龙.白兰度等著名人物撰写讣告。 书里引用了不少精彩的讣告,有幽默的,有令人毛骨悚然的,有令人惊讶的...
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