This Week in Reading June 28 - July 4

Authors born this week:

Nobel Prize in Literature
Playwright, novelist Luigi Pirandello (1934) Novelist Herman Hesse (1946) Poet Czelow Milosz (1980), Poet Wislawa Szymborska (1996)

Novelists and story writers
George Sand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Franz Kafka, George Duhamel, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Joanne Harris, Mark Helprin, Evelyn Lau, Florian Zeller

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Giacomo Leopardi, Vasco Popa, Jose Emilio Pacheco Playwrights: John Gay, George M. Cohan, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Tom Stoppard

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Nagel Believers Raymond A. Moody Scientists: Alfred Korzybski Historians John Toland, Harold Evans

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Dave Barry Essayists: Howard Taubman M. F. K. Fisher Editors: William Strunk, Jr., A. E. Hotchner Journalists: Oriana Fallaci, A. A. Gill, Matthew Fraser Media and others: Stephen Foster, Curt Sachs, Ann Landers, Abigail Van Buren, Geraldo Rivera, Ron Kovic, Montel Williams

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Suspense: Eric Ambler, Winston Graham, Charles Higson, Matthew Reilly

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Darren Shan

Visual Artists
Cartoonists: Rube Goldberg, Yoko Komio

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Esther Forbes, Jean Craighead George Teens: Julie Burchill

Events to read about:

It's all about Independence this week: The colonies separate from England, Thoreau moves out of the city, newspapers gain independence from some workers, businesses that are too big are told to become independent, Amelia Earhart flies so far away from things she disappears, after the Stonewall Riots gays leave the closets, and the voting age gets lowered giving eighteen-year-olds independence. Along the way a military college opens, a war ends, and people strive to end nuclear proliferation. Music and movies keep us entertained during all that.

This Week’s Questions:

Some powerful authors born this week sought independence from their own physical existence and others tried to reconcile the conflicts of being human. Who said what?

"It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect."

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ... A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

"Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!"

"I write fiction because it is a way of making statements I can disown. I write plays because dialogue is the most respectful way to contradict myself."

"In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago."

"Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

"Words are loaded pistols." – Jean Paul Sartre

"Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen, and not a shadow of an idea of what you're going to say." – Francoise Sagan

"Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance." – Jean Anouilh

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery." – George Orwell

"Until one has some kind of a professional relationship with books. one does not discover how bad the majority of them are." – George Orwell

FROM ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW

Spanning the years between 1945 – 2001 and the period between two disastrous bombings, this is a story of two families and their place in a tumultuous world. After losing her fiancé in the Hiroshima bombing a scared Hiroko travels to Delhi, India to meet his half-sister, Ilse and consequently begins a relationship that lasts the rest of their lives. Told by Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows takes the reader on a journey not only through history but different cultures and world views as well. After marring a Muslim employee of her hosts, Hiroko and her new husband are forced to relocate to Pakistan after the partition to establish a life and raise a son. Tragedy again causes her to relocate this time to New York where she moves in with Ilse and her daughter as their lives continue to be intertwined. An interesting and provoking read for a summer afternoon, this title would also make a good book group selection.

This Week in Reading June 21 - 27

AUTHORS BORN THIS WEEK

[As there are now too many of them, making Blogger's bot think this is a spam site, links to Glendale Public Library catalog records of books for these authors and events, if not linked from the blog, will now occur only on the This Week in Reading web pages in the Books and Reading section of the Glendale Public Library website. Besides this handy reference there are many good sites in those pages about what to read in every categor, as well as Novelist Plus at the Online Resources page.]

Nobel Prize in Literature
Novelist Pearl S. Buck (1938), Philosopher, playwright, novelist Jean Paul Sartre (1964)

Novelists and story writers
Machada de Assis, Erich Maria Remarque, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Francoise Sagan, Julie Kristeva, Yves Beauchemin Octavia Butler, Ian McEwan, Yann Martel

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Anna Akhmatova, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Ernesto Sabato, Aime Cesaire, Robert Aickman, Henry Taylor, Anne Carson Playwrights: George Abbott, Jean Anouilh, Joseph Papp, Michael Tremblay

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: William Frankena, W. V. Quine Believers: Reinhold Niebuhr Scientists: Alfred Kinsey, Donald Culross Peatie Historians: Richard Neustadt Biographers: Helen Keller, Laurie Lee

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Ambrose Bierce Essayists: Emma Goldman, Ariel Gore Journalists: Lafcadio Hearn Officials: Ross Perot, Dianne Feinstein, Clarence Thomas Media and others: Bill Blass, Anthony Bourdain

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Lawrence Block Suspense: H. Rider Haggard, A.J. Quinnell, Dan Brown

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Mercedes Lackey Science Fiction: James P. Hogan

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Historical Fiction: Roger McDonald, Scott Oden

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Rockwell Kent Graphic Novelists: Mike Wieringo, Dan Jurgens, Becky Cloonan Cartoonists: Al Hirschfeld, Berkeley Breathed, David Rees

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Charlotte Zolotow, Eric Carle

Events to read about this week:

Father’s Day, Olympics, SATs, Custer at Little Big Horn, United Nations, Who the Tonys are named after, Billy Wilder

This Week’s Questions:

Illustration still says very strong this week, especially with Rockwell Kent and Al Hirschfeld, and humorist Ambrose Bierce shows up with his customary cynical definitions:

"Blank Verse n.: Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- The most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind."

"Novel n.: a short story padded."

"Critic n. : A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him."

But other quotable authors born this week sound a lot like him. Who also is cynical this week?

"Words are loaded pistols."

"Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen, and not a shadow of an idea of what you're going to say."

"Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance."

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery."

"Until one has some kind of a professional relationship with books. one does not discover how bad the majority of them are."

Sheesh. Thanks for contaminating the week, Bierce.

"Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

The "work of a master; stunning, luminescent and conveying a sense of the mystical and magical." – about illustrator, children's book author Chris Van Allsburg's first full color book.

"Every picture in this book has a story to tell that is worth the telling." about a book of illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg

"The artist eyes of the author were quick to note gorgeous cloud effects and other scenic beauty, and his pen preserves the impressions and passes them on to the reader." – about a fiction book that illustrator James Montgomery Flagg wrote

"There are many exquisitely visual passages ... [The author] presents these elements with a poetic style sometimes described as a series of linked haiku." – about Nobel prize winning novelist Yasunari Kawabata

A "writer of pictures, an architect of speech and sounds, a draftsman of philosophical reflections." - about cartoonist Saul Steinberg

One movie critic was a "yearly presence at the noted Cannes Film Festival in France ... published an account of the event ... which [the critic] also illustrated" [and] "ventured into fiction in 1993 with ... a murder mystery serial spoofing Hollywood." – about movie critic Roger Ebert

The other one "would not just describe or critique a film but confront it — as if ... bringing to bear everything [the critic] knew about movie history and all [the critic's] intelligence and critical and literary talent." – about movie critic Pauline Kael

[All quotations in this week's answer from essays in Biography Resource Center, available from the Online Resources page of the Glendale Public Library with verifiable library card number.]

This Week in Reading June 14 - 20

Authors born this week:

Nobel Prize in Literature
Storywriter, playwright, novelist Yasunari Kawabata (1968)

Novelists and story writers
Harriett Beecher Stowe, Ivan Goncharov, Charles W. Chestnutt, Laura Z. Hobson, John Hersey, Jerzy Kosinski, Erich Segal, Joyce Carol Oates, Laurie Colwin, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Christian Bauman

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Sam Walter Foss, Frithjof Schuon, Geoffrey Hill, Paul Muldoon Playwrights: Marco Praga, Lillian Hellman

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: Blaise Pascal, Jurgen Habermas Scientists Erik Erikson Biographers: Xaviera Hollander

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Essayists: Sylvia Porter, Leon Wieseltier, George Akerlof, Russell Ash Editors and Worders: John Robert Gregg, Katherine Graham, Peter Gilliver Journalists: John Howard Griffin, Pierre Salinger Officials: Mario Cuomo, Newt Gringrich Media and others: Pauline Kael, Delia Smith, Roger Ebert, Donald Trump, Linda Chavez, Diablo Cody

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Suspense: Rosamond Smith

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Harry Turtledove Science Fiction: Murray Leinster

Visual Artists
Illustrators: James Montgomery Flagg, Nicholas Bentley, Chris Van Allsburg Graphic Novelists: Chris Onstad Cartoonists: Saul Steinberg Photographers: Carl Van Vechten, Margaret Bourke-White

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: W. V. Awdry, Laurence Yep, Chris Van Allsburg Teens: Brian Jacques

Events to read about this week:
Flag Day in America, Drake’s discovery of California and the short lived Bear Flag Republic in California, Babbage’s “Difference Engine,” the first Superman comic, the end of the Vatican’s ban on books, the signing of the Magna Carta, Ben Franklin proves electricity with a kite, birth dates of Geronimo, artist M. C. Escher,and designer Charles Eames, the Watergate break-in, O J’s slow chase, the invention of the chocolate chip cookie, Joan of Arc, the end of slavery in the Union, and hiding that fact from slaves in Texas, and the beginning of the Victorian Age.

This Week’s Questions:

There is an abundance of visual storytellers this week, artists who also wrote, writers who also drew, writers who wrote pictorially, writers who wrote about pictures, and writers who wrote pictures, too, one of whom won an Academy Award for it. Of whom are the following written?

"Every picture in this book has a story to tell that is worth the telling."

"There are many exquisitely visual passages ..." [The author] "presents these elements with a poetic style sometimes described as a series of linked haiku."

"The artist eyes of the author were quick to note gorgeous cloud effects and other scenic beauty, and his pen preserves the impressions and passes them on to the reader."

The "work of a master; stunning, luminescent and conveying a sense of the mystical and magical."

A "writer of pictures, an architect of speech and sounds, a draftsman of philosophical reflections."

One movie critic was a "yearly presence at the noted Cannes Film Festival in France ... published an account of the event ... which [the critic] also illustrated" [and] "ventured into fiction in 1993 with ... a murder mystery serial spoofing Hollywood."

The other one "would not just describe or critique a film but confront it—as if ... bringing to bear everything [the critic] knew about movie history and all [the critic's] intelligence and critical and literary talent."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:
"I am very foolish over my own book. I have a copy which I constantly read and find very illuminating." - William Butler Yeats

"There certainly does seem to be the possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks." - Dorothy L. Sayers

"You write a book, you invest your imagination in it, and then you hand it over to a bunch of people who have no imagination and no understanding of their own enterprise." - Saul Bellow

"There's only one person a writer should pay any attention to. It's not any damn critic. It's the reader." - William Stryon

Conversations with Frank Gehry

With Barbara Isenberg
Thursday, June 18, 7:00 p.m.

Glendale Public Library Auditorium
222 East Harvard Street, Glendale (818) 548-2042

A FREE event sponsored by the Friends of the Glendale Public Library

Drawing on the most candid, revealing, and entertaining conversations she has had with Frank Gehry, one of the world's most influential architects, Barbara Isenberg, journalist and regular contributor to Time Magazine and the Los Angeles Times, provides new and fascinating insights into the man and his work.

Gehry's subjects range from his childhood, when he first built cities with wooden blocks on the floor of his grandmother's kitchen, to his relationships with clients and his definition of a "great" client. We learn about his architectural influences (including Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright) and what he has learned from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rauschenberg.

We explore the thinking behind his designs for the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, art and artists, the Gehry Collection at Tiffany's, and ongoing projects in Toronto, Paris, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere. And we follow as Gehry illuminates the creative process by which his ideas first take shape--for example, through early drawings for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, when the building's trademark undulating curves were mere scribbles on a page. Sketches, models, and computer images provided by Gehry himself allow us to see how so many of his landmark buildings have come to fruition, step by step.

Library Catalog Listings for Barbara Isenberg

DTV Deadline is Here!

June 12th, 2009, marks the end of analog broadcasting for television stations in the United States (for real this time). Applications for converter box coupons are still being accepted for television owners who wish to continue using antennas to receive television signals without cable or satellite service.

According to an update on the TV Converter Box Coupon Program website, the deadline for submitting applications is July 31st, 2009, or until supplies run out.

Following is additional information from our March 2008 post on the subject of The Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005:

Part of the reasoning behind the switch is that it will free up broadcast space for public safety communications (hence the “Public Safety” portion of the act).

This switch will affect those who currently receive free, local, analog broadcast signals over the air through the use of an antenna (e.g. “rabbit ears,” rooftop antennas). Televisions currently connected to a cable or satellite feed will not be affected by the digital switch. Cable and satellite subscribers are encouraged to check with their service providers if they have any questions regarding the transition. Many newer televisions have a built-in digital tuner. Check the owner’s manual for you television if you are not sure whether your television will require a converter box.

The Federal Government established the TV Converter Box Coupon Program to help defray the costs for those impacted by the transition from analog to digital. All U.S. households are eligible to receive up to two (2) coupons, each worth $40, to apply toward the purchase of eligible converter boxes. Note that the coupons must be used at the time of purchase and will expire 90 days after the date of issue.

The TV Converter Box Coupon Program website features a brief questionnaire to help you determine if you will need to purchase a converter box, as well as links to apply for the $40 coupon online, via telephone, or by downloading and printing out an application to submit via mail or fax. TTY English and Spanish phone numbers are provided on the site as well.

The Federal Government’s Digital Television website features a list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding the analog-to-digital program, the coupon program, and general digital television-related issues.

BEACH BAG TIME ALMOST HERE

In less than two weeks it will officially be summer and time to start a serious vacation reading plan. If you like light reading with a hint of mystery and a semi-Dickensian setting, consider adding The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton to your list. It’s a story that shifts backward and forward in time so that each of the main characters can add her voice to the tale as well as add more to the details of the mystery of the child found abandoned on the docks. It’s a good escape for a hot summer afternoon.

For another work in a similar vein try The Lace Readers by Brunonia Barry. Intertwined with details of actual lace making and reading facts is the story of a murder, an unusual family and life in a small town. The fact that the small town is Salem, Massachusetts adds yet another intriguing layer.

This Week in Reading June 7 - 13

Authors Born this week

Nobel Prize in Literature
Willam Butler Yeats (1923), Saul Bellow (1976), Orhan Pamuk (2006)

Novelists and story writers
Fanny Burney, Bruno Frank, Elizabeth Bowen, George Axelrod, William Stryon, Brigid Brophy, Rona Jaffe, Harry Crews, Charles Webb, Louise Erdrich

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Sandro Penna, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni Playwrights: Ben Jonson, Djuna Barnes,Terrence Rattigan, Athol Fugard

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Believers: Arthur Hertzberg, Malcolm Boyd Biographers: Marguerite Yourcenar, Anne Frank, Christina Crawford

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Essayists: Irving Howe, Nat Hentoff, F. Lee Bailey Officials: Robert McNamara, George H. W. Bush, John Edwards Media and others: Cole Porter, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Michael J. Fox, Aaron Sorkin

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Dorothy L. Sayers, Patricia Cornwell

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Gregory Maguire Science Fiction John W. Campbell, Keith Laumer, Joe Haldeman, Whitley Strieber

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Egon Schiele, Maurice Sendak Cartoonists: Scott Adams, George Perez

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Charles Kinglsey, Johanna Spryi,

Events to read about: Paul Gauguin, and Richard Strauss, Ronald Reagan, the Bill of Rights, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures, the first spelling book, the first woman to drive across the United Staes. Donald Duck, the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, Anne Frank, and the publishing of the Pentagon Papers.

This Week’s Questions:

Which authors, born this week, said these?

"I am very foolish over my own book. I have a copy which I constantly read and find very illuminating."

"There certainly does seem to be the possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks."

"You write a book, you invest your imagination in it, and then you hand it over to a bunch of people who have no imagination and no understanding of their own enterprise."

"There's only one person a writer should pay any attention to. It's not any damn critic. It's the reader."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

Remarkable in her many achievements, famed British novelist, scholar Margaret Drabble actually edited, rather than wrote, The Genius of Thomas Hardy (also born last week,) but she wrote several other full biographes as well. She is the sister of novelist, scholar A. S. Byatt and is married to biographer Michael Holroyd.

Novelist V. C. Andrews used a wheelchair to get around but largely stayed reclusive. Broadcast journalist John Hockenberry was the first full-time television newsperson to show, by using a wheelchair, that persons with disability can be mobile for almost any assignment. Christy Brown, however, wrote about his disability, and grew up in a amall Irish village without access to such liberating devices so his siblings moved him around the village using a hay cart.

V.C. Andrews, who died in 1986, wrote only seven popular novels, yet thirty-nine novels under her name have been and are still being published. They are written by Andrew Neiderman under an agreement with her family to use the trademarked V.C Andrews name.. He and Andrews combined on her last work before dying, and he used her notes for the next three, but completely wrote the rest which are published as Andrews. In a similar, but not so extensive, way, and also with permission, other authors have taken on characters created by Marion Zimmer Bradley and have continued some of her series after she died in 1999.

Finally, among her many careers, historical novelist Colleen McCullough has been called a librarian because of her early years working in a library.

This Week in Reading May 31 - June 6

Authors born this week:

Nobel Prize in Literature:
Poet, novelist Karl Adolf Gellerup (1917), Novelist Thomas Mann (1929), Poet Saint-John Perse (1960)

Novelists and story writers:
Thomas Hardy, Dorothy West, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Jolley, Maurice Shadbolt, Christy Brown, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble, Charles Dickinson, Jim Knipfel

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Alexander Pushkin, Walt Whitman, John Masefield, Allen Ginsberg Playwrights: Pierre Corneille, Federico Garcia Lorca, John Van Druten, Spalding Gray, Harvey Fierstein

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers

Believers: Norman Vincent Peale, William Sloane Coffin, Robert Fulghum Scientists: Ruth Westheimer Historians: Cornelius Ryan, James H. Billington Biographers: Marquis de Sade

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others

Humorists: Fred Allen, Sandra Bernhard, John Hodgman Essayists: Adam Smith, Bernard Goldberg, Frank Rich Lawrence Lessig Journalists: Bill Moyers, Alexander Cockburn, Ahron Bregman, John Hockenberry, Anderson Cooper, target="_blank"Chuck Klosterman Media and others: Kevin Brownlow, Matthew Lesko, Suze Orman

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers

Fantasy: V. C. Andrews, Norton Juster, Marion Zimmer Bradley

Historical Fiction / Romance / Western Writers

Historical Fiction: Colleen McCullough, Ken Follett Historical Romance Fiction: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss Westerns: Larry McMurty

Visual Artists

Graphic Novelists: Adrian Tomine

Young People’s Writers

Children’s: Richard Scarry, Paul Stewart, Cynthia Rylant Teens: Margo Lanagan, Sarah Dessen

Events to read about from the Salem witch trials to D-Day.

This Week’s Questions:

Which novelist born this week wrote a book about another novelist born this week, is the sibling of another famous novelist, and married a prominent biographer?

There are three disabled writers this week, two of whom used wheelchairs most of their adult lives, but one who was otherwise mobilized. Who are they?

Which author born this week wrote only one fifth of the novels published under that author's name? (Be careful, it seems to have happened to another of this week's authors, but not to that extent so far.)

Which author is said to have worked as a librarian?

Answers to Last Week’s Questions:

Ralph Waldo Emerson said these:

"Tis the good reader that makes the good book."

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."

"Never read a book that is not a year old."

But G. K. Chesterton said these:

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."

"A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying 'Of course, I do not like green cheese; I am very fond of brown sherry.'"

Any question now about who could have been added also to the humorist category last week?