The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the

The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure

The team behind the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance turns conventional biography on its headâ€”and shakes out the good stuff.
Â
Following their Herculeanâ€”or is it Sisyphean?â€”efforts to save the living from ignorance, the two wittiest Johns in the English language turn their attention to the dead.
Â
As the authors themselves say, â€œThe first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are.â€ Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simpleâ€”but ruthlessâ€”criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting.
Â
Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly andâ€”until nowâ€”permanently obscure. Spades in hand, Lloyd and Mitchinson have dug up everything embarrassing, fascinating, and downright weird about their subjectsâ€™ lives and added their own uniquely irreverent observations.
Â
Organized by capricious categoriesâ€”such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, whose corpses refused to stay putâ€”the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve.
Â
Discover:

* Why Freud had a lifelong fear of trains
* The one thing that really made Isaac Newton laugh
* How Catherine the Great really died (no horse was involved)
Â
Much like the country doctor who cured smallpox (heâ€™s in here), Lloyd and Mitchinson have the perfect antidote for anyone out there dying of boredom. The Book of the Deadâ€”like life itselfâ€”is hilarious, tragic, bizarre, and amazing. You may never pass a graveyard again without chuckling.

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Binding Kindle Edition
Edition 1
EISBN 9780307716415
Format Kindle eBook
Label Crown
Manufacturer Crown
NumberOfPages 450
PublicationDate 2010-09-07
Publisher Crown
ReleaseDate 2010-09-07
Studio Crown

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
Edition	1
EISBN	9780307716415
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Crown
Manufacturer	Crown
NumberOfPages	450
PublicationDate	2010-09-07
Publisher	Crown
ReleaseDate	2010-09-07
Studio	Crown

The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure

You might also like...