This Week in Reading June 21 - 27

AUTHORS BORN THIS WEEK

[As there are now too many of them, making Blogger's bot think this is a spam site, links to Glendale Public Library catalog records of books for these authors and events, if not linked from the blog, will now occur only on the This Week in Reading web pages in the Books and Reading section of the Glendale Public Library website. Besides this handy reference there are many good sites in those pages about what to read in every categor, as well as Novelist Plus at the Online Resources page.]

Nobel Prize in Literature
Novelist Pearl S. Buck (1938), Philosopher, playwright, novelist Jean Paul Sartre (1964)

Novelists and story writers
Machada de Assis, Erich Maria Remarque, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Francoise Sagan, Julie Kristeva, Yves Beauchemin Octavia Butler, Ian McEwan, Yann Martel

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Anna Akhmatova, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Ernesto Sabato, Aime Cesaire, Robert Aickman, Henry Taylor, Anne Carson Playwrights: George Abbott, Jean Anouilh, Joseph Papp, Michael Tremblay

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Thinkers: William Frankena, W. V. Quine Believers: Reinhold Niebuhr Scientists: Alfred Kinsey, Donald Culross Peatie Historians: Richard Neustadt Biographers: Helen Keller, Laurie Lee

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Ambrose Bierce Essayists: Emma Goldman, Ariel Gore Journalists: Lafcadio Hearn Officials: Ross Perot, Dianne Feinstein, Clarence Thomas Media and others: Bill Blass, Anthony Bourdain

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Lawrence Block Suspense: H. Rider Haggard, A.J. Quinnell, Dan Brown

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: Mercedes Lackey Science Fiction: James P. Hogan

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Historical Fiction: Roger McDonald, Scott Oden

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Rockwell Kent Graphic Novelists: Mike Wieringo, Dan Jurgens, Becky Cloonan Cartoonists: Al Hirschfeld, Berkeley Breathed, David Rees

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Charlotte Zolotow, Eric Carle

Events to read about this week:

Father’s Day, Olympics, SATs, Custer at Little Big Horn, United Nations, Who the Tonys are named after, Billy Wilder

This Week’s Questions:

Illustration still says very strong this week, especially with Rockwell Kent and Al Hirschfeld, and humorist Ambrose Bierce shows up with his customary cynical definitions:

"Blank Verse n.: Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- The most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind."

"Novel n.: a short story padded."

"Critic n. : A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him."

But other quotable authors born this week sound a lot like him. Who also is cynical this week?

"Words are loaded pistols."

"Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen, and not a shadow of an idea of what you're going to say."

"Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance."

"All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery."

"Until one has some kind of a professional relationship with books. one does not discover how bad the majority of them are."

Sheesh. Thanks for contaminating the week, Bierce.

"Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another."

Answer to Last Week’s Questions:

The "work of a master; stunning, luminescent and conveying a sense of the mystical and magical." – about illustrator, children's book author Chris Van Allsburg's first full color book.

"Every picture in this book has a story to tell that is worth the telling." about a book of illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg

"The artist eyes of the author were quick to note gorgeous cloud effects and other scenic beauty, and his pen preserves the impressions and passes them on to the reader." – about a fiction book that illustrator James Montgomery Flagg wrote

"There are many exquisitely visual passages ... [The author] presents these elements with a poetic style sometimes described as a series of linked haiku." – about Nobel prize winning novelist Yasunari Kawabata

A "writer of pictures, an architect of speech and sounds, a draftsman of philosophical reflections." - about cartoonist Saul Steinberg

One movie critic was a "yearly presence at the noted Cannes Film Festival in France ... published an account of the event ... which [the critic] also illustrated" [and] "ventured into fiction in 1993 with ... a murder mystery serial spoofing Hollywood." – about movie critic Roger Ebert

The other one "would not just describe or critique a film but confront it — as if ... bringing to bear everything [the critic] knew about movie history and all [the critic's] intelligence and critical and literary talent." – about movie critic Pauline Kael

[All quotations in this week's answer from essays in Biography Resource Center, available from the Online Resources page of the Glendale Public Library with verifiable library card number.]

This Week in Reading February 15 - 21

Literary Names of Note This Week

Nobel Prize in Literature: Toni Morrison (1993)

Novelists and Story Writers: Henry Adams, Nikos Kozantzakis, Anais Nin, Carson McCullers, Chaim Potok, Jean Auel, Wallace Stegner, Amy Tan, Chuck Palahniuk, David Foster Wallace, Richard Ford, Mo Yan.

Poets and Playwrights: Raymond Queneau, W. H. Auden, Andre Breton, Russell Crouse.

Thinkers, Spiritualists, Scientists, Historians: Jeremy Bentham, Alfred North Whitehead, John Rawls, Eckhart Tolle, Van Wyck Brooks,

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Biographers: Erma Bombeck.

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers: Sax Rohmer, Ruth Rendell, Margaret Truman, Len Deighton, Gregory McDonald.

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers: Andre Norton, Laurell K. Hamilton, Iain Banks.

Graphic Novelists / Cartoonists / Illustrators: Warren Ellis, Gahan Wilson, Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening.

Literary Obituaries: Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih.

Events to read about: Both Corpenicus and Gallileo were born this week; the first magazine in America and later the New Yorker started up in the same week the Post Office was begun to deliver them; the US denied some Japanese Americans the right to citizenship during WWII and a president visited China to re-open it to the West; and we went from a computer the size of a room to You Tube appearing on handhelds.

This Week’s Question: One of this week’s authors said some of the best things ever about the process of writing for people who want to read. Who said the following?

"The language must be careful and must appear effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time."

"I wrote my first [x] because I wanted to read it."

"I never wanted to grow up to be a writer. I just wanted to grow up to be an adult."

Answer to Last Week’s Question: We showed you a site with pictures of beautiful libraries from around the world, called Curious Expeditions. We asked you which of these exquisite libraries have you visited. Some of our librarians in the course of their studies and travels have been to several reading rooms shown, including UC, Berkeley, the New York Public Library, our nearby neighbor, the Huntington Library (which has many rare first editions to see,) the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, the British Museum, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, Trinity College in Dublin (where you can see the Book of Kells on display.) The list is probably endless because some of us like also to visit other public libraries from small towns to big cities when we’re on vacation. It’s great to have themes for your vacations over your life, from all the libraries you can see to all the theaters you can see or all the ball parks or roller coasters you can visit. We have the books to show you where everything is.

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.

This Week in Reading March 2 - 8

The late but extremely popular Dr. Seuss, literary icons Tom Wolfe, Frank Norris, and Nobel Prizewinner Gabriel Garcia-Marquez were born in this week. All have certainly had respectable sales, but from now through the rest of the year, upcoming weeks will be filled with notables but few bestselling authors. You could make a case for the continued popularity of humorist Sholem Aleichem, referred to as "the Yiddish Mark Twain", and Ring Lardner whose humorous stories of innocent street types in bygone New York pleased magazine readers. Unlike Dr. Seuss, Aleichem and Lardner were known more for a specific audience, than broad commercial interest.

In addition to Dr. Seuss, the week also brings us three more illustrators of note in the cartoon spectrum. Howard Pyle drew and wrote adventures for young audiences, particulary his 1883 classic The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which is still in print. It was a "Hollywoodized" version of a legend, made easier for mass audiences to swallow, before there even was a Hollywood. It's been said that Van Gogh was a fan. Will Eisner drew and wrote comic books and small magazines from the 1930s to the 1970s. Then he created a novel length story told through pictures--a format we now commonly refer to as a graphic novel. Ronald Searle, an English illustrator with a delightfully twisted sense of humor, gave us St. Trinian's School for Girls as well as many cartoon cats.

This week's question: Which famous playwright and illustrator worked closely as an assistant to Will Eisner during his comic book years?

Answer to last week's question: In his 1957 National Book Award speech, poet Richard Wilbur spoke of the writing of poetry as a solitary endeavor, "an unsocial way of manufacturing a thoroughly social product." He also said, "Yet of course he is pleased when recognition comes; for what better proof is there that for some people poetry is still a useful and necessary thing — like a shoe."

This Week in Reading February 17 - 23

February gives us more super sellers this week. There are the mystery writers Margaret Truman and Ruth Rendell along with suspense specialist Len Deighton and humorist Erma Bombeck, all of whom were very popular in years past and still today. While not being a prolific writer, the unique timeframes of Jean Auel's books set in prehistoric times have always been in high demand.

Then there are the literary greats who also have had respectable sales beyond popular interest, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison, Nikos Kazantzakis, and Wallace Stegner. As last week saw two cartoonists this week is shared by the two gothically funny illustrators, Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson.

This week's question: There are several well known poets born in this week. W. H. Auden, James Russell Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Nobel prizewinner, the Greek poet, George Seferis.

Which of them wrote the following? "No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him."

Which of the poets wrote this? "No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted."

Answer to last week's question: The creator of Maus, Art Spiegelman, was not the first graphic novelist in America, but he was the one who brought the underground comic culture to the attention of mainstream America. His 1986 tale, drawn in cartoons, of his parents' experiences surviving the Holocaust actually won him the Pulitzer Prize. Matt Groening's Simpsons franchise has won him nine Emmys and his series Futurama has won him one.