Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries, reading about the remarkable lives of world leaders, captains of industry, innovators, and artists. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. The journalist, humorist, and history buff is righting that wrong, profiling the people who have long fascinated him, from the greatest entertainer to sitcom characters that went all too soon, to a shamefully forgotten Founding Father. Rocca chronicles...

At a time when the free press is under threat, OBIT. takes a rare look inside one of the United States' foremost journalistic institutions, The New York Times. The steadfast writers of the paper's Obituaries section approach their work with journalistic rigor and narrative flair, each day depositing the details of a handful of extraordinary lives into the cultural memory. Going beyond the byline and into the minds of those chronicling the recently...