This Week in Reading December 6 - 12, 2009

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature
Novelist, poet, playwright Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1903); poet Nelly Sachs (1966); novelist Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1970); novelist Naguib Mahfouz (1988)

Novelists and story writers
Gustave Flaubert, Willa Cather, George Grossmith, Joyce Cary, Robert Enriques, Manes Sperber, Rumer Godden, Clarice Lispector, Jim Harrison, Carmen Martin Gaite, Thomas McGuane, Ki Longfellow, John Banville, Mary Gordon

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Horace, John Milton, Nikolai Aleseevich Nekrosov, Emily Dickinson, Pierre Louys, Kahlil Gibran, Joyce Kilmer, Delmore Schwartz, Grace Paley, Carolyn Kizer, Ahmad Shamlou, Thomas Lux Playwrights and Screenwriters: Alfred de Musset, George Feydeau, Odon von Horvath, Dalton Trumbo, Ernest Lehman, Reginald Rose, John Osborne, Peter Handke

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: Noam Chomsky Scientists: Robert J. Sternberg Historians: Barry Cunliffe Biographers: Eve Curie

Humorists, Essayists, Editors and Critics, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Joel Chandler Harris, James Thurber, Douglas Kenney Essayists: Osbert Sitwell, Bill Bryson, Norman Finkelstein, Mark Steyn, Ann Coulter Editors and Critics: Paul de Man Officials: John Jay, Tip O’ Neill, Tom Hayden, John Kerry Media and Others: Kirk Douglas, Sammy Davis, Jr., Susan Powter

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: George MacDonald

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Romance: Diana Palmer Historical Fiction: Patrick O'Brian

Visual Artists
Cartoonists: E.C. Segar, Marge, Frank Springer, John Buscema, Ashleigh Brilliant

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Jean de Brunhoff, Sonia Manzano Teens: Jacquelyn Mitchard

Events to read about this week:
Pearl Harbor is attacked, John Lennon is killed, Blago and Bernie are arrested; uber-librarian Melvil Dewey, uber-filmmaker Georges Melies, uber-crooner Frank Sinatra, and uber-muralist Diego Rivera are born; Nobel prizes are given out, Hannukah begins, the Encyclopedia Britannica is published; NAFTA is agreed upon, Human Rights are celebrated by the UN; and Al Gore agrees that George Bush won the election.

This Week’s Questions:

Which author born this week described what you find in the library?

"Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand — a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods — or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values. "

"There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

Two satirists share November 30 and two religious fantasy writers share November 29.

"The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it." - Mark Twain

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." - Jonathan Swift

"There's more to life than just the things that can be explained by encyclopedias and facts. Facts alone are not adequate." - Madeline L'Engle

"The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity." - C. S. Lewis.

This Week in Reading November 30 - December 6

Anniversaries abound this week. Charlemagne and Napoleon became rulers of France, the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Los Angeles Times began, the Monroe Doctrine was spelled out, and the westward “Manifest Destiny” of the country was declared. One country attacked another, and a draft began for another war. The prohibition on alcohol ended but a prohibition on speech led to a student movement for freer speech. Charles Dickens began to get paid for his speeches as he became a world traveler to read publicly from his works.

Some extremely well known authors were born this week, several of them having a great deal to do with satire. First there was Jonathan Swift, and later Mark Twain. Then came Woody Allen, Calvin Trillin, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and sometimes David Mamet.

Novelist Joseph Conrad did not write comedy, nor did Joan Didion nor Peter Handke but they, and story writer Cornell Woolrich, along with poets Ranier Maria Rilke and Christina Rossetti all reached powerful levels of anxiety in readers. Other well known names include Winston Churchill, poet Joyce Kilmer and the oft quoted Kahlil Gibran. There is also another early Nobel prizewinner, the lesser known classicist Theodore Mommsen who won in 1902.

This Week’s Question: Quotes from authors this particular week could fill a volume by itself but here are just two. Which authors born this week said these?

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Answer to Last Week’s Question: The term illuminated generally refers to the Medieval practice of decorating manuscript pages with gilded lettering and small illustrations interspersed with the text. Bringing the practice back to the modern world, poet – artist – visionary William Blake invented relief etching, a reverse of the usual process, and added illustrations, which had to be hand colored, to create illuminated books of his poetry. Noted among them are Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Book of Job. Original editions are prized among collectors and special libraries.