"Another five or six books were almost ready, and a couple of films still needed finishing. After that, he said, “I’d like to travel.”" I'm doing my travelling

"Another five or six books were almost ready, and a couple of films still needed finishing. After that, he said, “I’d like to travel.”" I'm doing my travelling and going to concerts while I'm young. The quote from Jonas made me think to look for books written by old people. Is there a database where I can easily compare the publication date of a book and the date of birth/death of the author? Surely the data must be available, because the date of the author's death is important for copyright issues.