Marilyn Johnson

"Through a combination of perception and wit, Johnson discovers how archaeologists are invaluable witnesses 'to the loss of our cultural memories.'" —USA Today

The author of The Dead Beat and This Book is Overdue! turns her piercing eye and charming wit to the real-life avatars of Indiana Jones—the archaeologists who sort through the muck and mire of swamps, ancient landfills, volcanic islands, and other

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An entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past looks at the actual, nonglamorous working conditions they actually face, as well as what drives them to do this very important, yet often tedious, work.

Marilyn Johnson was enthralled by the remarkable lives that were marching out of this world-so she sought out the best obits in the English language and the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. She surveyed the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms, and made a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all. Now she leads us on a compelling journey into the cult and culture behind the obituary page and the...

A playful, profound, and immensely moving docu-fantasia by Kirsten Johnson is a valentine to the director's beloved father, Dick Johnson, made as she has begun to face the reality of losing him to dementia. Using the language of cinema both to defy death and to confront it head-on, Johnson mischievously envisions an array of ways in which the man she loves most in the world might die, staging a series of alternately darkly comic and colorfully imaginative...