Deaths in May - 2019

Hockey great Red Kelly died May 2 at the age of 91. He wrote Hockey: The Sports Playbook.

Former Governor of Puerto Rico Rafael Hernandez Colon died May 2 at the age of 82. His books include Vientos De Cambio. Memorias De Rafael Hernandez Colon , La nueva tesis (Spanish Edition) and Derecho procesal civil .

Evangelist Rachel Held Evans died on May 4 at the age of 37. Her books include A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof and Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church.

Advocate for the disabled Jean Vanier died May 7 at the age of 90. His books include Becoming Human , Community and Growth and From Brokenness to Community (Harold M. Wit Lectures) .

Historian John Lukacs died May 5 at the age of 95. His many books include Five Days in London: May 1940 and Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture .

Naturalist Jim Fowler, who co-hosted Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, died on May 8 at the age of 89. He wrote Jim Fowler's Wildest Places on Earth.

Novelist Chuck Kinder died May 3 at the age of 76. His books include Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale and Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life. His struggles to write inspired his student Michael Chabon to write Wonder Boys.

Former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Warren H. Phillips died May 10 at the age of 92. he wrote China: behind the mask.

Actress Peggy Lipton died May 11 at the age of 72. She wrote Breathing Out.

ACLU advocate for women's rights Lenora Lapidus died May 5 at the age of 55. She wrote Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policies on Women and Families.

Actress, singer and animal advocate Doris Day died May 13 at the age of 97. She wrote Please take good care of your best friend!!: A book on pet care .

Mathematician Goro Shimura died May 3 at the age of 89. His books include The Story of Imari: The Symbols and Mysteries of Antique Japanese Porcelain, Introduction to the Arithmetic Theory of Automorphic Functions and Abelian Varieties with Complex Multiplication and Modular Functions.

Comedian Tim Conway died May 14 at the age of 85. His autobiography was called What's So Funny?: My Hilarious Life .

Economist Alice M. Rivlin died May 14 at the age of 88. Her books include Reviving the American Dream and Systematic Thinking for Social Action.

Architect I. M. Pei died May 15 at the age of 102. His printed works include Drawings for the East Building, National Gallery f Art , I.M. Pei - Words for the Future and L'invention du Grand Louvre .

The celebrity known as Grumpy Cat died May 13 at the age of 7. Amazingly prolific for a cat, her many books include A Grumpy Book and Grumpy Cat’s Guide to Life.

Criminologist George L. Kelling died May 15 at the age of 83. His books include Fixing Broken Windows and Neighborhoods and Police.

Italian politician Gianni di Michelis died May 11 at the age of 78. He wrote La Lunga Ombra di Yalta.

Former Australian PM Bob Hawke died May 16 at the age of 89. His books include The Hawke Memoirs and The Resolution of Conflict.

Celebrated author Herman Wouk died May 17 at the age of 103. He's remembered for such classics as The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance among many others.

Civil rights activist and poloitician Unita Blackwell died May 13 at the age of 86. Her autobiography was called Barefootin’:.

Tommy Donbavand writer and entertainer died May 14th 2019 aged 51.

Foreign correspondent and columnist Georgie Anne Geyer died May 15 at the age of 84. Her books include Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro and When Cats Reigned Like Kings.

Formula One race car driver Niki Lauda died May 20 at the age of 70. His books include To Hell and Back, The art and science of Grand Prix driving and The new Formula One: A turbo age.

Nuclear physicist with an interest in UFOs, Stanton T. Friedman died May 13 at the age of 84. His books include Top secret/MAJIC, Crash at Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-Up of a Ufo and Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience: The True Story of the World's First Documented Alien Abduction.

Chef Louis Osteen died May 19 at the age of 77. He wrote Louis Osteen's Charleston Cuisine.

Author Binyavanga Wainaina died May 21 at the age of 48. His works include One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir , Kwani?, How to Write About Africa , Discovering Home and Beyond the River Yei: Life in the Land Where Sleeping Is a Disease.

Children's author Judith Kerr died May 22 at the age of 95. Her many books include When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit , The Tiger who Came to Tea and Mog the Forgetful Cat .

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann died May 24 at the age of 89. His books include The Quark and the Jaguar and Non-Extensive Entropy.

Former football player Bart Starr died May 26 at the age of 85. He wrote Bart Starr: My Life in Football and How to Become a Quarterback.

Advocate for women in the sciences Prof. Margaret-Ann Armour died May 25 at the age of 79. She wrote Hazardous Laboratory Chemicals Disposal Guide.

Artist Lutz Bacher died May 14 at the age of 75. Her works include Max Ophuls in the Hollywood Studios and Lutz Bacher: Snow.

Publisher Robert L Bernstein died May 27 at the age of 96. He wrote Speaking Freely: My Life in Publishing and Human Rights. Obit here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/obituaries/robert-l-bernstein-publisher-and-c...

Biographer Edmund Morris died May 24 at the age of 78. He wrote a number of books on Theodore Roosevelt, including The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, as well as Beethoven: The Universal Composer and Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Obituary here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/obituaries/edmund-morris-reagan-biographer-wh...

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tony Horwitz died May 27 at the age of 60. His books include Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War , A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World and Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before .

Jamaican politician Edward Seaga died May 28 at the age of 89. His autobiography was called Edward Seaga: My Life and Leadership.

Screenwriter Roger O. Hirson died May 27 at the age of 93. He wrote the book for Pippin: A Musical Comedy.

Portrait artist Everett Raymond Kinstler died May 26 at the age of 92. His books include Painting Portraits and Painting Faces.

Drug kingpin Frank Lucas died May 30 at the age of 88. His autobiography was called Original Gangster and his story was made into the movie American Gangster.

Peter Gammond died May 6th 2019. He wrote many books mainly about music but I suspect many readers will remember him for his series of "bluffer's guides". The Times's obit suggests that his Bluff Your Way in Music was a fraud as he was an expert but when it came to Golf he really was bluffing as his handicap was in the high twenties.

Anthony Price died May 30th 2019. He wrote the Dr David Audley series of spy novels.

Baseball historian Marc Okkonen died May 27 at the age of 85. His books include Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century: The Official Major League Baseball, The Federal League of 1914-1915: Baseball's Third Major League and Baseball Memories, 1900-1909.

Surgeon Lasalle D. Leffall Jr. died May 25 at the age of 89. He wrote No Boundaries: A Cancer Surgeon's Odyssey.

Psychologist Leann Birch died May 26 at the age of 72. She wrote Eating Behaviors of the Young Child: Prenatal and Postnatal Influences for Healthy Eating.

James S. Ketchum Army psychiatrist who conducted Cold War experiments with LSD on soldiers, died May 27 at the age of 87. He wrote Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten: A Personal Story of Medical Testing of Army Volunteers.

Editor Murray Polner died May 30 at the age of 91. His books include We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now and Disarmed and dangerous : the radical lives and times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan.

Blues harmonica player Tony Glover died May 29 at the age of 79. His books include Blues Harp and Blues with a Feeling: The Little Walter Story.

Rudolf von Ribbentrop, son of the Nazi diplomat hanged as a war criminal Joachim von Ribbentrop, died May 20 at the age of 98. He wrote Mein Vater Joachim von Ribbentrop : Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen . It was translated into English this year as My Father Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Playwright Philip Osment died May 24 at the age of 66. His work includes Gay Sweatshop: Four Plays and a Company (Methuen Theatrefile) and Osment Plays: 1: Dearly Beloved , What I Did in the Holidays , Flesh and Blood.

Poet Fawzi Karim died May 29 at the age of 73. He wrote Plague Lands: And Other Poems and Incomprehensible Lesson: in versions by Anthony Howell .

Scholar and poet George T. Wright died May 1 at the age of 93. His key works were Shakespeare's Metrical Art, The poet in the poem; the personae of Eliot, Yeats, and Pound and Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections. Appreciation here: https://cla.umn.edu/english/news-events/news/remembering-george-t-wright

Political scientist Su Shaozhi died May 27 at the age of 96. He wrote Democratization and reform and Marxism in China .