Has an author ever died while you were reading his/her book?
It’s happened to me twice - W.O. Mitchell died while I was reading his book “Who Has Seen The Wind?” and Harold C. Schonberg died while I was reading his book “The Lives of the Great Composers.”
Crichton.
I killed Anthony Burgess by reading everything of his I could get my hands on until November 1993, exhausting his catalog at the same time he died. Then I did for Susan Travers, whose autobiography of her adventures with the French Foreign Legion I returned to my public library the same week she died.
I’m afraid I do this sort of thing quite regularly. A while back I was remembering the character from Gomer Pyle: the salesman who’d sell slipshod goods out of the trunk of his car. Forty years since I’d watched the show. A few days later I see in Wikipedia that he’d died.
I have no time to waste on reading Glen Beck or Ann Coulter, but now that I think of it…
Michael Crichton is the only one I can think of.
Not quite the same thing, but science fiction legend John Brunner died of a stroke while attending the Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention) in Glasgow in 1995. The news stunned all of us who were there, and it was turned into an impromptu memorial.
No, but both Richard Biggs(Babylon 5) and Andy Hallet(Angel) died while I was re-watching their shows. I learned of Richard Biggs the next day, but I was literally watching Andy Hallet on screen when I learned of his death.
Very creepy and weird.
I was rereading the wheel of time series when I heard Jordan had passed away.
This is going back a ways, but in 1976, when I was a freshman in high school, I was reading the Hercule Poirot mystery*** Curtain ***when I heard that Agatha Christie had died.
I can’t think of any other time that happened.
Some authors have only avoided this fate by not being within arm’s reach while I was reading their books.
Isaac Asimov. But considering that between 1985 and 2000 I pretty much was ALWAYS reading an Isaac Asimov book (in the mix of many books being read simultaneously) the odds were good.
I was reading a Stephen King book when he got hit by the car and nearly died.
Yes! I was rereading one of the Dragonriders of Pern books when Anne McCaffrey passed away.
Gary Jennings… The Journeyer.
Stephen King.
I got him back from the Author Sematary, but he’s never been the same. 
A friend of mine wrote this book. He sent me a hard copy in the mail soon after it was published. And then he died a week later. 
Yeah, you and how many millions of other people?
I keep reading Piers Anthony, but no luck yet…
I was there too and actually witnessed his death. I didn’t realise it at the time. I saw the poor man collapse and immediately become surrounded by people who appeared to know what they were doing so I carried on walking. It wasn’t until Samuel R Delany gave his elegy and incidentally pinpointed the time and place that I realised who it was I had seen. Very tragic, I felt so sorry for his (Japanese) wife who found herself widowed in a foreign country.
I was also reading one of hers, but for the first time.
Probably the last too, to be honest.
If I ever publish a book, please don’t any of you folks read it.
While shopping for Christmas music one year, some friends and I ran across the Tiny Tim Christmas album. I made a snide remark that they didn’t get, never having heard of him. As we left the store, I was describing his loopy legend, and sang a snatch of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” When we got back to the house, we heard on the news that he had died–right at the time that I was singing that song…
Not an author, so not an exact fit for the OP, but in January I was working on a “top ten” playlist for a friend’s podcast. The topic was Top Ten Academy Award Nominated Songs.
I had “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” on my list and thus listened to it countless times over the week that I was putting my list together. I was actually listening to it when I saw the headline that Patty Andrews died.