Someday, your life story is likely to be boiled down to a few lines. If you leave things to chance, your obituary is almost sure to be solemn, formulaic, and full of errors--an obligatory final chapter written in haste by others. James R. Hagerty, longtime obit writer for The Wall Street Journal, knows how to get the job done right: Do it yourself, starting now, while you still can. In this heartfelt and reassuring guide, Hagerty explains how to preserve...

"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...

-- Mobituaries, Take Herbert Hoover: before he was president, he was the "Great Humanitarian, "the man who saved tens of millions from starvation. But after less than a year in the White House, the stock market crashed, and all the good he had done seemed to be forgotten. Then there's Marlene Dietrich, well remembered as a screen goddess, less remembered as a great patriot. Alongside American servicemen on the front lines during World War II, she...

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, middle-aged Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily. When Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dies in a diving "accident, " Jack uses clues from the singer's own music to unravel the mystery and resurrect his career in the process.

Winter Snow has had it! With her business in a death drought, her best friend Scoop implicated in a string of arsons, and an obituary listing Winter herself as deceased, her life is heating up. But just as she's trying to cool things down, she receives her newest assignment: an obituary for Chester, a homeless man found in a burning building. Promising the local funeral home manager that she will have the obituary by the deadline, Winter is stonewalled...

By: Stephen J. Chism, Pub. 1990, Reprinted 2015, 120 pages, E-BOOK, Index, ISBN #978-1-63914-514-0. This index includes 14,329 entries of unequivocal reports of death in which a person (s) is named between the years 1819 and 1879. The Arkansas Gazette for the same period lists 4,201 names under the heading "Deaths". This can be attributed to the inclusive policy of listing every mention of death, whether it appears in an obituary column or in the...