This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

In This Book Is Overdue!—-a romp through the ranks of information professionals who organize our messy world and offer old-fashioned human help through the maze—-acclaimed author Marilyn Johnson celebrates libraries and librarians and discovers offbeat and eloquent characters in the quietest corners.

The New York Times - Pagan Kennedy

This is one of those books, in the vein of Mary Roach's Stiff (about human cadavers), that tackle a big topic by taking readers on a chapter-by-chapter tour of eccentric characters and unlikely locations…In her most absorbing passages, I felt as if I were back in the children's library, scrutinizing a volume of the World Book Encyclopedia, where the entry on "pachyderm" sat near the disquisition on "pachysandra," a kind of ground cover. Johnson's book carries the same kind of associative magic. Rather than taking us on a brisk, orderly march, she lets us ride on the swaying back of an elephant, glimpsing treasures glimmering through the fronds of pachysandra.

Having made a name for herself penning memorable obituaries for the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, and Johnny Cash for Life and other magazines, Marilyn Johnson takes a fascinating look back at the experience in The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries.