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This book was probably funny, poignant, irreverent, and wise, but it didn't hit me at the right time in my life, and I couldn't enjoy it as much. I didn't want to read about death and the meaning of life and the average guy feeling sorry for himself. Not the book's fault. I read it for a book club.

I really just feel like reading about dragons or something.🐲

This feels as if it could have been written by the great Jonathan Tropper, one of my favorite novelists. Maybe that's why this was the best novel I've read this year. Or maybe it's because it's funny. And sad. And beautiful. All I know is that it's everything you could want in a novel. #2025Book47

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.
--Virginia Woolf

Stand out on the sidewalk on Broadway, smoking, hating yourself for smoking, looking at the faces, all those lovely faces, all those lives and friends and families and loves and thinking you are all going to die one day and wondering what we are going to do with that knowledge we daily ignore.

That's the beauty of New York. If you pay enough, anything is possible. I couldn't afford this, but that's what high-interest credit cards are for.

“What happened?“ I asked.
“Do you know what deep vein thrombosis is?“
“An English punk band?“

It's remarkable what you can do when you don't care what anyone thinks anymore.

A small crowd of my colleagues had formed behind him, looks of concern on their pale faces. It dawned on me that journalists are pale. I wasn't sure why. Maybe all that indoor work. We didn't look like handsome TV people.

While the ending didn't quite hit for me, overall, I really enjoyed this exploration of connection, relationships, and the meaning of life in the context of mortality. Maybe "enjoyed" is an odd word to use, but the book is definitely funny while dealing with death, disability, mental illness, and other challenging life circumstances. It makes a good case for facing mortality head on. This is one I learned about from @BarbaraBB

And just that clearly, in the muddled, whiskey-soaked place where terrible ideas pose as good ones, I knew what I had to do.

My October TBR for #Bookspin, #HauntedSelf, and #CasttheDie (first 13 with the tagged as my Lucky Book), plus several alternates since I have so many newer titles on my TBR and those are sometimes difficult to acquire in a timely manner without breaking the budget. (And because I was too excited about spooky reading to stop at 20.)

And here's Camille, making sure I'm doing it right.

@thearomaofbooks @puddlejumper

This was just so-so for me. Because it was quite slow-slow. Excellent message though, I just found the MC uninteresting. (32)
⭐️: 3/5

I just loved this. The initial humor makes room for more depth than I was expecting. Bud is an obituary writer. And after a botched blind date he drunkenly pens his own obituary and manages to publish it. Put on leave from his job, Bud has some time to spend with friends, start a funeral attendance habit, and examine his own life. The question: in light of your own mortality, how does one make a meaningful life?

Bud Stanley writes obituaries for a paper. After a bad breakup, a disastrous date, and one too many Scotches, he accidentally publishes his own obituary. The paper tries to fire him—only to find he‘s now listed as dead and can‘t be fired. Stuck in a bureaucratic mess, Bud tries to find meaning in living. This sounds sad but it‘s actually funny too!
Good recommendation @Lesliereadsalot

This book reminded me a lot of Mikki Brammer‘s ‘The Collected Regrets of Clover‘. Bud writes about death every day—obituaries are his career. And yet, he has no idea how to live. After a mistaken publishing of a self-obituary, his life changes…one funeral at a time. After attending a series of funerals for people he doesn‘t know, he starts to think more about life. But only after the death of a special friend does he finally begin to live.

There is an obituary to write. I want to do it in a way that reminds anyone who reads it that that person‘s life mattered, that we won‘t forget. It is so easy to forget. We are all obituary writers because we get to write our life every day. Write it. Please. It‘s your life. Also, it will make my job easier.

I loved this book. Meet Bud, an obituary writer with a wry sense of humor and an amazing circle of friends. He‘s all about life and death, living and dying. I even wrote down this quote “We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom.” Did I mention that I loved this book? I cried through the last 50 pages. I even loved the author‘s note and the acknowledgments!

I saved the last hour of the audiobook for my walk home and end up crying so hard that I had to stop walking until I could blink all the tears clear. So - 5 stars, no notes!

Tbh, I wasn‘t sure about Bud in the beginning, if he was a character I wanted to spend time with - but then he hit submit on his own obituary and well, I was hooked.

I keep stumbling into books that explore grief in its many manifestations ⬇️

I See You‘ve Called in Dead, by John Kenney (2025)

Premise: After a drunkenly posting his own mock death notice, a New York obituary writer looks for the meaning of life and death.

Review: This is a fun, moving, and insightful book. I particularly appreciated how it held certain truths out for us without laying it on too thick; death is after all a mystery that‘s really impossible to write about well. It‘s also a really great New York book. Cont