This Week in Reading September 20 -26

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature

Poet T. S. Eliot (1948) novelist William Faulkner (1949), poet Jaroslav Seifert (1984)

Novelists and story writers

Charles Robert Maturin, Emmuska Orczy, Upton Sinclair, Lu Xun, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fay Weldon, Vladimir Voinovich, Fannie Flagg, Jane Smiley, Javier Marias

Poets and Playwrights

Poets: Stevie Smith,

Donald Hall Playwrights: Euripides, Henry Arthur Jones, Marsha Norman

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers

Thinkers: Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss Historians: Anthony Blunt, Robert Kagan

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

Humorists: A. P. Herbert Essayists: C.F. Ramuz, J. Frank Dobie, Bell Hooks, Andrea Dworkin Editors: C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, Maxwell Perkins, Michael Varhola Journalists: Walter Lippman, Ana Marie Cox Officials: John Marshall, Christine Todd Whitman Media and Others: George Gershwin, Mickey Rooney, Joyce Brothers, Jim Henson, Lou Dobbs, Neil Cavuto, Ricky Lake, Nicole Ritchie

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers

Mystery: Minette Walters

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers

Fantasy: John Brunner, Keith Roberts, Peter David Horror: Horace Walpole, Stephen King Science Fiction: H.G. Wells, George R. R. Martin, Will Self

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers

Romance: Rosamund Pilcher

Visual Artists

Illustrators: Charles Keeping Graphic Novelists: Steve Gerber, Louise Simonson Cartoonists: Chuck Jones

Young People’s Writers

Children’s: Shel Silverstein

Events to read about this week:

Galileo is tried for heresy, the Cannes film festival, gas powered cars, Joseph Smith gets his angelic directions, Billie Jean King beats the man who said she couldn't, the first NFL Monday Night football telecast, Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman on the Supreme Court, Armenia becomes independent from the Soviet Union, The National Geographic begins, Kublai Khan reigns, the Hollerith tabulating machine in the nineteenth century and Nintendo in the twentieth, the trial of the Chicago Eight, national monuments are designated for the first time, the first newspaper in America, Balboa sights the Pacific Ocean, Drake's crew finishes circumnavigating the earth, Nixon uses a dog in a speech and later debates John Kennedy on television.

This Week’s Questions:
There is a nearly straight line of Gothic fiction from Horace Walpole to Stephen King, both born this week. What kind of work is meant by the term "gothic fiction"?

The very famous word "serendipity" was coined by an author born this week. Which one was it? What does it mean?

Also, who born this week said the following? "[T]his world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

Answer to Last Week’s Question:

Which author born last week, besides Agatha Christie, sold over one hundred million books?

Roald Dahl, who wrote mostly chlldren's books, reached the 100 million book sales benchmark. But he is only 55th on Wikipedia's list of bestselling authors. By the way, Agatha Christie, is only number two, behind William Shakespeare, yet she, like he, has sold between two and four billion.

Stephen King, born this week, has sold over 300 million books. Quite a prolific time of year, eh?