This Week in Reading May 10 -16

Authors born this week:

Nobel Prize in Literature: Novelist Camilo Jose Cela (1989)

Novelists and story writers
Benito Perez Galdos, Katherine Anne Porter, Juan Rolfo, Bel Kaufman, Nayantara Saghal, Francisco Umbral, Alphonse Daudet, Bruce Chatwin, Armisted Maupin, Koji Susuki

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Dante Alghieri, Edward Lear, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Andrey Voznesenskii, Adrienne Rich, Kathleen Jamie Playwrights: Arthur Schnitzler, Mikhail Bulgakov, Max Frisch, Anthony Shaffer, Peter Shaffer, Paul Zindel, Allen Ball

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Believers: Karl Barth, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Louis Farrakhan Scientists: Richard Feynman, Farley Mowat Historians: Ariel Durant, Janine Basinger

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Mort Sahl, George Carlin Essayists: Hal Borland, Studs Terkel, Edward T. Hall, Jeremy Paxman Officials: Henry Cabot Lodge Media and others: Arthur Sullivan, Irving Berlin, Yogi Berra, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Daphne Du Maurier, Leslie Charteris

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: L. Frank Baum, Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, Thomas Tessier Science Fiction: Olaf Stapledon, L. Neil Smith, John Scalzi

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Historical Fiction: Barbara Taylor Bradford

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Margaret Rey

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Rachel Billington, Carolyn B. Cooney, Mike Lupica, Eoin Colfer

Events to read about from the first woman to run for president to the United States first space station.

This Week’s Questions:

Categorizing writers is always a fuzzy undertaking. While it’s obvious that many novelists wrote short stories, that many fantasy authors also wrote science fiction, and some illustrators also wrote books for children, too, some nonfiction writers also wrote poetry and plays. Many fiction writers wrote nonfiction and a few screenwriters also wrote novels and plays. Some historical fiction is also romance, and some crime is both mystery and supense.Nor always is there a clear line between philosophers and religious thinkers, or between essayists and journalists. And some wrote in several genres and for different ages.The categories used here are generally what the author is most known for, though he or she could easily fit into another category as well.

That said, which author born this week was a philosopher first and a fiction writer second?

Which author has also had a political career and ran for president?

Which nonfiction author readily admitted that some of his nonfiction is fiction?

Which authors published the book they are known by only after segments ran in newspapers?

Which one serialized a book first on a website before it was published?

Answer to Last Week’s Question:

“Poetry is the art of understanding what it is to be alive.” - Archibald MacLeish, poet

“All poetry is putting the infinite with the finite.” – Robert Browning, poet

"Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator." – Charles Simic, poet

“The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.” – Christopher Morley, mystery novelist.