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.]