Obit

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.Jim Sheeler is the Shirley Wormser Professor of Journalism and Media Writing at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper feature on the war in Iraq that led to a book, Final Salute, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award in nonfiction.