The Big Book of Celebrity Autopsies

by Kevin Viani

When a life ends tragically whether by violence or accident, pathologists perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death. It is a methodical, morbid, and necessary task. These autopsy reports, often filled with medical terminology and intriguing diagrams of the bodies we knew so well from their lives on the big screen, offer an unusual insight into the nature of death itself. The reports you'll find here provide a fascinating glimpse into the underworld that hovers just beyond the reach of the living.

Includes the autopsy files or transcriptions from dozens of famous people including:

Presidents: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

Assassins and Criminals: Lee Harvey Oswald and Jesse James

Musicians and Movie Stars: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Whitney Houston

In a world more obsessed with celebrity than ever before these reports are a sobering reminder of how fleeting real fame can be--and how destructive and dangerous as well.

Genres: Medical, History, Nonfiction

456 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2013

Reviews

[Lee Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose if you pick this up in the first place, you know what you're in for, so I don't need to warn you about the subject matter. This is exactly what it says it is: photocopied, sometimes blurry and unreadable, copies of autopsy reports of the famous and notorious. Since it is nearly impossible to read in places, especially with my middle-aged eyes, not to mention dull and repetitive in the toxicology portions anyway, it is more of a skimmer than a reader.

Some "fun" facts I learned:

1. Biggie Smalls had a skin tag on his nutsack.
2. Michael Jackson had his hairline tattooed to mask thinning; also his eyeliner and lips were tattooed on.
3. All the modern women (Whitney Houston, Anna Nicole Smith, Brittany Murphy) had some kind of false hair woven into their real hair. Marilyn Monroe and Sharon Tate did not.
4. Everyone famous takes Valium, apparently.
5. One of Jack the Ripper's victims had her intestines pulled out and slung over her right shoulder.
6. Richie Valens' head trauma was so bad, he was unidentifiable.

If this is your bag, it's worth a look.

[Elaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book is exactly what the title says, the only thing I had issue with was that some pages showing reports were completely illegible. This is because the original reports were probably small and blown up to fit in the book or were illegible in the first place. Some I skipped over pages of because I literally couldn't read them. It would have been better had the author retyped the reports clearly and noted it. But the ones I could read were very informative.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stumbled across this as I was looking for books on Micheal Jackson for my son. Sounded interesting so I gave it a whirl.

The book contains reports of several famous people, Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, Micheal Jackson, Whitney Houston to name a few.

I was expecting more of a story explaining how these people died and what the toxicology reports showed. Instead they were actual autopsy reports complete with medical terminology that my school mind through Grey's Anatomy know only parts of what they were talking about. Way more technical stuff that I was really interested in.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really expecting something much more...gruesome, I think. Many of the scanned reports are poor quality and hard to read. Doctors' handwriting is always impossible, but still a creepy, quick skim.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of it were super interesting, but I was looking for something more... Juicy, I guess. And some of the print was unreadable.

[Courtney Wilbur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish some of the reports were just typed out so they were more legible. But some very interesting cases!

[MKF · Rating 1 out of 5]

Some of these are barely readable and some are incomplete with obvious missing information.

[Nessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Overall. As a forensic science student, this book helped me apply what I knew to documents. Some of the older copies are hard to read as the font is small and faded. Some of the handwriting is also hard to read in sections. I had to google some of the terms but I was so invested that I didn't care. If you are a fan of forensic science, criminal investigations, or medical science this is a must read.

[Emily Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is exactly what it says it is. It's a book of autopsies. The reason why it's only 3 stars for me is because some of them are entirely illegible while others have been re-typed to be able to be read and I am confused as to why the editor didn't take the time to do this for others that were clearly harder to read.

[Cynthia Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading. Lengthy and sometimes hard to read autopsy reports. As the years progressed the autopsies became more detailed- not a surprise really with new advances in technology. As one other reader commented this is more of a “skimmer” type of read than a regular read.

[Zenith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such poor quality

[aleaha 𝜗𝜚 · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved loved loved this book. i’m a huge fan of true crime and when i found this book i just had to read it.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good info but the reports they photocopied from the autopsies some of them were hard to read, or you couldn’t read them at all.

[Jess Nischler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great when you can read it.
There’s some really interesting stuff in this book, unfortunately some reports are hard to read or completely unreadable.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book with a nice collection of celebrity autopsies. My only gripe is that some of the pages with documents are hard to read due to blurry text. Other than that I thought it was interesting.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some autopsies are impossible to read due to very poor scans and others are missing pages. Other than that, it is facilitating!

[Mellanie C]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14075638