This Week in Reading August 9 - 15

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature
Playwright Jacinto Benavente (1922), Novelist John Galsworthy (1932)

Novelists and story writers
Sir Walter Scott, Alfred Doblin, Edna Ferber, Radclyffe Hall, Eiji Yoshikawa, Angus Wilson, Ward Moore, Jorge Amado, Wallace Markfield, Daniel Keyes, Fernando Arrabal, Tom Perotta, Amelie Nothomb, Will Clarke

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Katharine Lee Bates, Ernest Thayer, Hugh MacDiarmid, Louise Bogan, Phillip Larkin, Mary Jo Salter, Mark Doty Playwrights: John Dryden, Leonid Andreyev, Robert Bolt, William Goldman

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Believers Jerry Falwell Scientists: Jean Piaget Historians: Goldwin Smith, Edith Hamilton, Gisela M. A. Richter, A.N. Sherwin-White Biographers: Alex Haley, Jim Beaver, Anthony Swofford

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: David Steinberg, Steve Martin Essayists: Izaak Walton, Thomas de Quincy, Andre Dubus, Marilyn Vos Savant, Rachel Simmons Editors: George Grove, Russell Baker, Norris and Ross McWhirter Journalists: Linda Ellerbee, Andrew Sullivan Officials: Robert G. Ingersoll, Vernon Jordan, Jr. Media and others: Julia Child, George Soros

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Mary Roberts Rinehart Suspense: Jonathan Kellerman

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Science Fiction: Lee Hoffman

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Romance: Danielle Steele

Visual Artists
Graphic Novelists: Posy Simmonds, Jim Lee Cartoonists: Rene Goscinny, Tove Jansson, Gary Larson Photographers: Herb Ritts

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: E. Nesbit, Enid Blyton, P. L.Travers, Ann M. Martin Teens: Walter Dean Myers, Rob Thomas

Events to read about this week:
The Sistine Chapel opens to the public, Mr. Smithson bequeaths the Smithsonian, Daylight Savings time is invented, the Watts riots happen, the US gets out of Vietnam, Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, Mr. Nestle, and Annie Oakley were born, Mark Phelps earns 8 medals, Social Security and Woodstock got started in the same week and now many of the attendees at that music festival are old enough to start getting on Social Security.

This Week’s Questions:

Though not a literary writer per se, Julia Child wrote cookbooks that gave more detail than the traditional cookbooks she had read. She even won a National Book Award. In what year did she win it, and for which book? Also, where was she born?

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:
Fantasy and science fiction author Piers Anthony had various learning disabilities as a chiild and became a reader with the help of his parents who read to him every night and helped him to read for himself. "I think that nightly reading, and the daytime storytelling when we worked together outside, was the most important influence on my eventual choice of career. I knew that books contained fascinating adventures, and those stories took me away from my dreary real life..." Starting writing at age twenty, having "already read everything published in my field [science fiction and fantasy]", to date he has written well over a hundred books and has millions of fans.