This Week in Reading December 20 - 26

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature
Poet Juan Ramone Jimenez (1956); storywriter, novelist Heinrich Boll (1972)

Novelists and story writers
E.D.E.N. Southworth, Rene Bazin, Albert Payson Terhune, Henry Miller, Giuseppe Lampedusa, Norman Maclean, Alejo Carpentier, Anthony Powell, Hortense Calisher, Calder Willingham, Christopher Buckley, Sandra Cisneros, Donna Tartt, Elizabeth Kordova

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Thomas Gray, George Crabbe, Matthew Arnold, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Filippo Tomasso Marinetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Jean Toomer, Robert Bly Playwrights and Screenwriters: John Fletcher, John Baptiste Racine, Dion Boucicault, Rod Serling, Nicholas Meyer

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: Suzanne K. Langer, Sidney Hook, Rene Girard Believers: Roger Williams, Carlos Castaneda Historians: James Burke Biographers: Quentin Crisp

Humorists, Essayists, Editors and Critics, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Steve Allen, Alan King Essayists: Edward Hoagland, William Kristol Editors and Critics: Robert Ripley, Rebecca West, Deems Taylor, Dana Gioia Journalists: I. F. Stone Officials: Norman Angell Media and Others: Phil Donahue, Jane Fonda, Uri Geller, John Walsh

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Seicho Matsumoto Crime: Peter May Suspense: Mary Higgins Clark

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Edwin Abbott Abbott Science Fiction: Fritz Lieber, Nalo Hopkinson

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Otto Soglow Graphic Novelists: Mark Millar, Tony Moore

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Johnnie Gruelle, Eduard Uspensky, Avi Teens: Robert Muchamore, Stephenie Meyer

Events to read about this week:
“It’s a Wonderful Life”, “The Night Before Christmas”, “The Glass Menagerie”, US Poets Laureate; Winter Solstice, Christmas and Christmas Eve, Kwanzaa; Puccini, Kit Carson, Charles Babbage; Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock, Washington crosses the Delaware, words cross each other, a tsunami wave crosses land, the Red Sox cross their fans.

This Week’s Questions:

Which authors born this week said these?

"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."

"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."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:
V. S. Pritchett (Literature) - "One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential."

William Safire (Writing) - "... avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives."

Lester Bangs ( Music) - "It is a fact that nine-tenths of the HUMAN RACE never have and never will think for themselves, about anything."

Roger Fry (Art) - " ... the artist's business is not merely the reproduction and literal copying of things seen: -- ... he is expected in some way or other to misrepresent and distort the visual world."

Jean Genet (Drama) - "To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance."