Thomas Hoobler, Half of a Prolific Writing Couple, Dies at 82

New York Times

22-03-2025

Thomas Hoobler, who with his wife, Dorothy Hoobler, wrote 103 books across a vast range of subjects, including young-adult biographies of Margaret Mead, mystery novels set in 18th-century Japan and, most recently, a book about presidential love letters with the attention-grabbing title 'Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?,' died on Feb. 22 in Manhattan. He was 82.
His wife and their daughter, Ellen Hoobler-Banavadikar, said the cause of his death, at a hospital, was a stroke. His death was not widely reported at the time.
The Hooblers were journeyman writers, contributing to series that will be familiar to any pre-teenager or parent of a pre-teenager, including Penguin's wildly successful history books known by fans as 'Big Heads' for their cartoonish covers, which bore titles like 'Where Are the Great Pyramids?' (2015) and 'What Was the San Francisco Earthquake?' (2016).
The couple also wrote their own series. They were proudest of the 10 'American Family Albums' they wrote for Oxford University Press, starting with 'The Chinese American Family Album' in 1994. The series, which drew on diaries, photographs and newspaper clippings to tell the story of the American immigrant experience, won a slew of honors, according to the Hooblers' website, including three awards from the Parents' Choice Foundation, a nonprofit guide to children's media and toys.
Such recognition was typical of the Hooblers' output for young readers, which drew on extensive research but presented history and personalities in compelling, age-appropriate language.
Given their prolific output and the esteem they earned among teachers, parents and librarians, it's a good bet that a sizable percentage of any given elementary school library was written by Mr. and Mrs. Hoobler.
They took their subjects and their readers seriously, assuming that storytelling mixed with the right amount of facts could get young people interested in, say, a Chinese Communist leader ('Zhou Enlai,' 1986) or a world war ('The Trenches: Fighting on the Western Front During World War I,' 1978).
Most of their work was nonfiction, but they also wrote novels: 'In Darkness, Death' (2004), part of a seven-book series about a samurai detective, won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Despite his abundant writing, Mr. Hoobler was never a household name — though he had a brief bit of fame in 2001 when he appeared on the television quiz show 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.'
Wearing a black sweater, made by Mrs. Hoobler, checked with colorful diamonds, he powered through enough rounds to win $500,000, some of which they used to pay for a monthlong trip to Italy.
It also gave them enough of a financial cushion to expand their audience to adult readers, a market where they could not count on multi-book contracts.
They wrote a book about Mary Shelley and the writing of 'Frankenstein,' 'The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein' (2006), and one about the theft of the Mona Lisa, 'The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft and Detection' (2009), which was excerpted in Vanity Fair.
Their 103rd and last book, on presidential love, came about almost by accident. Mr. Hoobler was researching in the archives of Richard M. Nixon when he came across letters he had written to his wife, Patricia, before he became president.
The book, published last year, received positive reviews, including one from the novelist W.M. Akers, who wrote in The New York Times that 'it answers the question 'What does a president in love sound like?' with a refreshing 'Just as dopey as anybody else.''
Thomas William Hoobler was born on June 12, 1942, in Cincinnati, the son of John Hoobler, a printer, and Jane (Pachoud) Hoobler, who managed the home.
His life in letters began early: He worked alongside his father at his print shop as a child and got his first paying job, as a copy reader, at 10.
He studied English at the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1964, followed by a year at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He then returned to Cincinnati, where he taught high school English and coached basketball.
Eager to push his writing career forward, he moved to New York City in 1971. He met Dorothy Law on his first day in town. They married that year.
Mrs. Hoobler and their daughter survive him. His brother, Jerry, died in 2016.
The Hooblers spent most of the 1970s as editors at trade magazines, even after they began writing books. Their first three books all appeared in the mid-1970s: 'House Plants,' a manual; 'Frontier Diary,' about a young girl's 19th-century trip across America; and 'Margaret Mead: A Life in Science.'
That last book in particular set the template for their approach.
They did not, as some curious readers assumed, sit side by side, clacking out manuscripts on matching typewriters. They worked in separate rooms, with separate responsibilities. Though they both researched and wrote, Mrs. Hoobler proved better at the former — she even interviewed Ms. Mead — while Mr. Hoobler took the lead on the writing.
'Sometimes I would do a very rough draft, and then he would write the final script of it — it really did depend,' Mrs. Hoobler said in an interview. 'We worked together pretty well, I think. Obviously, we got these projects done.'