Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Book of Obituaries cover art

Book of Obituaries

By: Ann Wroe, Keith Colquhoun
Narrated by: Lucy Scott
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £20.99

Buy Now for £20.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Editor reviews

Lucky Scott raises the already entertaining collection of obituaries to new heights with her lively performance of The Economist: Book of Obituaries. This work is a brilliant collaboration between editors Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe, who have compiled a volume of the most noteworthy obituaries that appeared in the English newspaper The Economist, between the years 1994 and 2008.

Looking to give extra context to the last remembrances of a wide range of individuals, Book of Obituaries is well worth a listen. Learn about the lives of famed persons like Princess Diana, Bip, and Hunter Thompson. Or the less well-known, but equally interesting obituaries of an American gangster, a singing psychic, and the inventor of instant noodles.

Summary

The obituaries that appear in The Economist are remarkable because of the unpredictable selection of people to be written about, the surprising lives they lead - but also for the style in which the obituary is written. The selection for this book ranges far and wide, including Jean Bedel Bokassa and Pope Jean Paul II, Pamela Harriman and Harry Oppenheimer, Akio Morita and J. K. Galbraith, Jean Baudrillard and Syd Barrett, Estee Lauder and Hunter Thomson, Bip (the legendary mime artist Marcel Marceau) and even Alex the African Grey (science's best known parrot).

©2011 Ann Wroe, Keith Colquhoun (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"The wit is wicked, in the best sense of that ambiguous word, but it is never cruel, and always bang on; as its victims, after serving their million-odd years in Purgatory, would ruefully have to agree." (The Spectator)

What listeners say about Book of Obituaries

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.