they were dying to be included...

"The Economist Book of Obituaries" by Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe (Bloomberg, 409 pages, $30) When you pick up the newspaper, what do you like to read first? Comics? Sports? The editorial pages? Stock market quotes? In the New York Times, I check two sections first: the book reviews and the obituaries. Of course I read the book reviews religiously. And then, in the obit section I learn about fascinating people who accomplished significant things during their lives. The writers frequently turn up marvelous anecdotes about the deceased. Some obits are downright humorous. In my quest for additional purveyors of fine obituaries I've unearthed another source, The Economist. This publication is even older than the New York Times. It was founded in 1843 and curiously, never published obituaries prior to 1995. They must be even more selective than the New York Times because they publish only one obituary per week. From 1995 to 2003 their obits were written by Keith Colquhoun. And for the past five years they have been written by Ann Wroe. The best of these are now available in "The Economist Book of Obituaries." There are obits for notable people that you'd expect: Diana, Princess of Wales; Gerald Ford; George Harrison; John Paul II; Frank Sinatra; and Hunter S. Thompson. Then there are the ones that we knew little to nothing about — individuals who somehow rose up from among the teeming masses and took some bold action that did humanity proud. Or, in some instances, shamed the human race. In marking their exploits, our own lives seem richer. Here are a few of my favorites: Momofuko Ando invented instant noodles in 1957. After a string of business failures, he created his secret instant noodle recipe. Ando, who died last year at age 96, held this philosophy of life: "peace will come when people have food. Eating wisely will enhance beauty and health. The creation of food will serve society." Rosemary Brown was a musical psychic. She claimed psychic contact with legendary composers like Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, "who had employed her on earth to receive their latest compositions." She made regular TV appearances in which she related that, "in heaven ... there was no sex ... 'the earthy side of our being has been left behind.' There was though, oddly, an interest in fashion. ... Everyone was well. Beethoven was no longer deaf." Brown died in 2001 at age 85. Albert Hofmann was the Swiss chemist who first synthesized the drug LSD in 1943. "For the next decades, Mr. Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses." Apparently, it didn't do him any harm. He died this past April. He was 102. Alex the African Gray was a parrot who "had a vocabulary of 150 words ... he could count up to six, including zero (and was grappling with the concept of 'seven' when he died)." Book reviewer Vick Mickunas blogs daily about books at www.DaytonDailyNews.com/booknook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com. Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/5/08; 2:50:57 PM from the dept. Discuss

this tiger is all white with me....

here's a stack of books I've set aside. I plan to read them. Last spring I placed "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga in that pile. It got great reviews. Still, I had not cracked it open yet. "The White Tiger" just won the Man Booker prize, Great Britain's most prestigious literary award. Each year an author from Britain, Ireland or one of the British Commonwealth countries is chosen to receive it. The prize comes with a lovely check for 50,000 pounds — that's about $86,000. That piqued my interest. The author was born in India in 1974. "The White Tiger" is his first novel. Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine. As a journalist, he found a part of India that he never witnessed before — grinding poverty. As a consequence he decided to write this book. The White Tiger of the title is Balram Halwai, the narrator. As the novel starts, Balram has heard that the premier of China is coming for a state visit. The book is written in the form of letters that Balram is writing to the premier. Balram identifies himself as an entrepreneur. He suggests that "apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs." Over the course of seven nights Balram describes how he rose up from horrifying conditions in the Indian countryside, an area that Adiga refers to as the Darkness. Balram became the driver for a wealthy family in Delhi. He observed as his corrupt employers bribed government officials and lived the high life while the multitudes struggled to exist. In his travels across India the author was struck by the fact that most Indians lived a threadbare existence yet the country has a low crime rate. His character Balram marvels that his fellow servants don't steal from their masters. As the story develops readers observe Balram's resentment growing. The book has ruffled some feathers. The Press Trust of India reports that "Adiga's novel is creating ripples in India for its defiantly unglamorous portrait of the country's economic miracle." Adiga makes no apologies. He told The Times of India, "I tried to tell a very real story about India on the brink of unrest. I tried to challenge the assumptions that many in middle-class India hold about the poor: that they are stupid, easily manipulated, excessively religious and bound by caste and family." Adiga's Balram is a fascinating fellow. "The White Tiger" is animated by Balram's dark humor. We balance on the trembling knife edge of irony as Balram astutely observes: "See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor." Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/5/08; 2:49:36 PM from the dept. Discuss

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