Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow Dies in Auto Accident

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2012-02-10/jeffrey-zaslow-obituary/53043198/1
Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow killed in Michigan crash
By Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press
February 10, 2012

Jeffrey Zaslow, the West Bloomfield, Mich. author who wrote best-sellers such as The Last Lecture about a professor dying of pancreatic cancer and a recent book on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' recovery from a gunshot wound to the head, was killed Friday in a car accident in northern Michigan.

Mr. Zaslow, 53, was a Philadelphia native who was married to Sherry Margolis, a Fox 2 Detroit news anchor since 1987, and the father of three daughters.

Fox 2 Detroit confirmed Zaslow's death late this afternoon.

The station said Zaslow was killed in auto accident in northern Michigan, according to the Antrim County Sheriff's Department. It happened around 9 a.m. on M-32, near Elmira. Police said Zaslow lost control of his car and was hit by a semi-truck on a snow-covered road. He had been in Petoskey previously for a book-signing.
Supremely outgoing and equally self-deprecating, Zaslow had a knack for ferreting out details that riveted a reader. He wrote books that inspired millions, unleashing the insight of Randy Pausch, the computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon whose lecture about dying from pancreatic cancer and achieving childhood fantasies became The Last Lecture (Hyperion, $21.95) in 2008. Another book, The Girls from Ames about 11 childhood friends in Iowa and their bonds while growing up, also became a bestseller.

Zaslow also profiled Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who successfully landed a distressed airliner full of passengers on the Hudson River in New York in Highest Duty (William Morrow, $25.99). Last year, he also documented the saga of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman, as she recovered from a bullet wound to the brain after a gunman shot her and killed six others. Along with Giffords' husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, Zaslow coauthored Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope (Scribner, $26.99).
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