This Week In Reading August 16 - 22

Authors born this week -

Nobel Prize in Literature
Poet Salvatore Quasimodo (1959), novelist V. S. Naipaul (2001)

Novelists and story writers
Samuel Richardson, Albert Cohen, Vilhelm Moberg, James Gould-Cozzens, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Vasily Aksyonov, Melvin Van Peebles, E. Annie Proulx, Roger Stone, Greg Bear, Jonathan Coe

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Edgar Guest, Ogden Nash, Charles Bukowksi, Ted Hughes, Li Young Lee Playwrights: James Kirkwood, Jr.

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Believers: Paul Tillich Scientists: Margaret Murie Biographers: T. E. Lawrence, Frank McCourt

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Dorothy Parker, X. J. Kennedy Essayists: Mary Matalin Editors: William Maxwell, Malcolm Forbes Officials: Bill Clinton, Tipper Gore

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Crime: Vincent Bugliosi

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: H. P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, M. M. Kaye Science Fiction: Hugo Gernsback, Brian Aldiss

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Romance: Jacqueline Susann Historical Fiction: Georgette Heyer

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Aubrey Beardsley, Ivan Bilibin, Chynna Clugston Graphic Novelists: Brian Michael Bendis Cartoonists: Otto Messmer, Stephen Hillenburg

Young People’s Writers
Teens: Dianna Wynne Jones, Will Shetterly

Events to read about this week: The Salem witch trials, Nat Turner's rebellion, the Lincoln – Douglas debates, the women's suffrage amendment, Darwin's theory of evolution, Hawaii's statehood, tjhe death of Elvis, and the births of Sam Goldwyn and Gene Roddenberry.

Obituaries
Columnist Robert Novak (78), news producer Don Hewitt (85)

This Week’s Questions:

Which author born this week wrote which of these?

Candy

Is Dandy

But liquor

Is quicker.

If with the literate I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:
Julia Child, born and raised next door in Pasadena, received the National Book Award for Julia Child and More Company in 1980. This was an outgrowth of her later television program called Julia Child and Company. Her first PBS program, The French Chef, based on her first co-written book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was the first national program to be captioned for deaf viewers. Her kitchen from that program is on display at the Smithsonian, in the National Museum of American History. Julia Child's influence on American cuisine after the 1960s is incalculable.

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.

Julie and Julia

"Julie & Julia", the August 9 movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams as Julia Child and author Julie Powell, is based on Powell’s real life memoir in which she chronicles her experiences cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell recorded her daily thoughts and efforts in a blog that was later published as a book in 2005 titled Julie and Julia : 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen : how one girl risked her marriage, her job and her sanity to master the art of living.

Julia Child was a real life “top chef” and Powell liberally seasons her memoir with dollops of Child’s extraordinary life. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I suggest that the movie has all the ingredients to be a summer hit. The smart and funny Nora Ephron wrote the screenplay and directed the film, the lead actresses are a gift to your movie palate and both books mentioned here were bestsellers.

Read Julie & Julia and our books by and about Julia Child and see the movie. Bon appétit!

This Week in Reading August 12 - 18

Authors born this week include some more bestselling names like Danielle Steel, Jonathan Franzen, and V. S. Naipaul from this era and Edna Ferber, John Galsworthy, and Sir Walter Scott from earlier eras. But William Goldman's movies probably reached more viewers than these talents found readers simply because of the medium he used.

And what ex-student has not perused Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" in middle school, high school, or college? Who's not heard of Ernest Thayer's Casey at the Bat, our modern mythology? And what cook does not know of Julia Child, the patron saint of American cooking?

This Week's Question: Although the IBM personal computer was introduced in 1981 and became popular because of the distribution power of the corporation which had already served the business machine market it was not the absolutely first personal computer. Can you name other products that preceded it to market? And can you name the person who wrote the first Basic program for one of the more well known attempts at creating a computer any writer could use?

Answer to Last Week's Question: The term "idyll" refers to a short poem set in a pastoral setting, and Tennyson's Idylls of the King was made up twelve such short poems about incidents in the life of King Arthur. As authors do today, the poet tells his version of the English myth in ways that speak to his Victorian contemporaries. In this way, stories centuries old live through literary retellling and every era, including this one, needs its artful word slingers, written or vocal. Anyone interested in retelling myths and old stories to today's audiences?