[LAST] This Week in Reading Dec 27 - Jan. 2

Happy Holidays, readers! TWIR bids a fond adieu.

It's done now. This is the last appearance of This Week in Reading, our blog blurb for authors' birthdays. After two years it's pretty much complete. If we still have errors or omissions, (and we expect we might,) please leave a comment on the blog and let us know what we need to fix.

If you want to know which authors were born on your birthday, or someone else's, it will be still available through the Books and Reading page. Just drop down the menu to the desired week.

We'll try to get more varied content up on Book Talk. Thanks for following and keep reading.

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature
Novelist, storywriter, poet Rudyard Kipling (1907)

Novelists and story writers
Theodor Fontane, Mariano Azuela, Horacio Quiroga, E. M. Forster, Louis Bromfield, Robert Ruark, Paul Bowles, William Gaddis, Elyne Mitchell, J. D. Salinger, Wilfred Sheed, Manuel Puig, Michael Nesmith, Douglas Coupland, Chandle Burr, Nicholas Sparks, Wendy Coakley-Thompson

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Danil Kharms, Arthur Hugh Clough, Robert Nathan, Charles Olson, Patti Smith, Joshua Clover Playwrights: Carl Zuckmayer, Christopher Durang, Paul Rudnick

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: Mortimer Adler Scientists: William Masters, Jack Hanna, Bjarne Stroussstrup Biographers: Oscar Levant, John Denver, Stanley Tookie Williams

Humorists, Essayists, Editors and Critics, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Stephen Leacock, Don Novello, Paula Poundstone, Sarah Vowell Essayists: James Frazer, Gilbert Murray, Simon Wisenthal, Ermest Tidyman, Ian Buruma Editors and Critics: Ellen Datlow Journalists: Sebastian Hafner, Brian Redhead, Lawrence Schiller, Cokie Roberts Officials: Woodrow Wilson Media and Others: Cliff Arquette, Joe Bologna, Diane von Furstenberg, Barbara Olson, Tracey Ullman, Sean Hannity, Gerina Dunwich

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Crime: Edward Bunker

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Susan Shwartz, Lewis Shiner Science Fiction: Isaac Asimov, Bob Shaw, Connie Willis

Visual Artists
Graphic Novelists: Steve Rude, Christopher Ware, Ariel Schrag Manga: Noake Urasawa Cartoonists and Cartoon Writers: Stan Lee, B Kliban, Lynda Barry, Julie Doucet

Events to read about this week:

New Year’s Day with its Rose Parade and Rose Bowl, the birth of J. Edgar Hoover, Benazir Bhutto, first paying audience for a movie, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Endangered Species Act, Thomas a Becket's murder in a cathedral, the first freeway, Henri Matisse.

Obituaries
Film Critic Robin Wood (78); Novelist Loren Singer (86); New York Review of Books illustrator David Levine (83).

This Week’s Questions:

Can you tell us what you would like to see and read about in our Glendale Public Library Book Talk blog? Please leave a comment so we can make this blog more useful and interesting to you.

Would you send in a few lines about a book you've recently read from the Glendale Public Library and think other readers would like? (All submissions will be assessed for appropriateness and edited for size and readability as well as content restrictions but will be considered by blog editors. Please include the name of your branch library. Only a first name and last name initial will be used to identify the submitter.)

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

"If I would have realized that the stories in my head would be as intriguing to others as they were to me, I would probably have started writing sooner. Believe in your own taste." - Twilight series creator Stephenie Meyer

"There was never a question in my mind. Ever since I could hold a pencil, I wrote poems, skits, plays. We put a velvet curtain up in the garage and the garage was our stage and people sat in the driveway." - Romantic suspense mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark