Friday, July 31, 2015

July 31

Born:



1904 - Bret Halliday
The main pseudonym of author Davis Dresser, who wrote in the mystery, romance and western genres under other pseudonyms, but was mostly known for his Michael Shayne series.




1919 - Primo Levi 
Italian chemist and writer. His If This Is a Man is an account of his time in a Nazi concentration camp, and his The Periodic Table was named the greatest science book ever written by the Royal Institute of Great Britain.





1929 - Lynn Reid Banks
British author of children's books, most famous for The Indian in the Cupboard and the series which followed it.







1933 - Cees Nooteboom
Dutch author who has been mentioned as a Nobel Prize possibility. His novels have lots of vowels.




1952 - Faye Kellerman
American mystery author, whose Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series is still going strong.








1956 - Lynne Rae Perkins
American children's book author and illustrator, whose Criss Cross won the 2006 Newbery Medal.



1965 - J.K. Rowling
British author, three time winner of the now defunct Nestle's Smarties prize. Seriously, do I need to say anything more about her?




Died:
1784 - Denis Diderot
1944 - Antoine Saint-Expury
2000 - William Keepers Maxwell, Jr.
2001 - Poul Anderson
2012 - Gore Vidal 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

July 30

Born:



1818 - Emily Brontë
English author whose only novel, Wuthering Heights, is considered a classic of English literature. AND she has an umlaut in her name.






1931 - Dominique Lapierre
French author, known in the U.S. for his collaborations with Larry Collins.








1945 - Patrick Modiano
French novelist, winner of the 1978 Prix Goncourt for his work Rue des Boutiques Obscures and the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation."





1950 - Archer Mayor
American mystery writer, author of the Joe Gunther detective series.








1975 - Cherie Priest 
American author who writes in the genres of Southern gothic, horror and steampunk.




Died:
1771 - Thomas Gray
1918 - Joyce Kilmer
1965 - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
1975 - James Blish
1977 - Emory Holloway
2012 - Maeve Binchy

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

July 29

Born:



1805 - Alexis de Tocqueville
French political thinker, best known for his two-volume work Democracy in America.






1869 - Booth Tarkington
American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.








1900 - Eyvind Johnson
Swedish author who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature with Harry Martinson "for a narrative art, far-seeing in lands and ages, in the service of freedom."







1905 - Stanley Kunitz
American poet; winner of the 1955 National Book Award for Poetry and the U.S. Poet Laureate in both 1974 and 2000.



1909 - Samm Sinclair Baker
American author of many how-to and self-help books; notably The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet.











1909 - Chester Himes
African-American writer, two of whose works, Cotton Comes to Harlem and A Rage in Harlem, have been made into movies.




1918 - Edwin O'Connor
American author whose The Edge of Sadness won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962.









1918 - Mary Lee Settle
American author who won the 1978 National Book Award for her novel Blood Tie.









1945 - Sharon Creech
American author of children's fiction who has won both the Newbery Medal (for Walk Two Moons) and the Carnegie Medal.







1960 - Didier Van Cauwelaert
French author whose 1994 novel Un Aller Simple won the Prix Goncourt.








1970 - Adele Griffin
American author of young adult fiction, two of whose novels have been National Book Award finalists.







1972 - Wil Wheaton
American actor, writer, and general internet good guy.




Died:
1974 - Erich Kästner

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

July 28

Born:




1866 - Beatrix Potter
English author and illustrator who became famous for her children's stories, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.







1887 - Willard Price
Canadian-born American author whose Adventure series followed the travels of teenage zoologists Hal and Roger Hunt.




1909 - Malcolm Lowry
English poet and novelist who was best known for his novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.








1927 - John Ashbery
American poet who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror




1932 - Natalie Babbitt
American author of children's books, whose novels Tuck Everlasting and The Eyes of the Amaryllis have both been made into movies.







1945 - Jim Davis
American cartoonist, known for the Garfield cartoon strips and books.








1946 - Robert Asprin
American science fiction and fantasy author, known for his humorous series.









1956 - John Feinstein
American sportswriter, whose books mainly focus on basketball and golf.









1959 - William T. Vollman
American novelist who won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction for his novel, Europe Central.







1960 - Jon J. Muth
American children's and comic artist, known for his painted techniques.



1963 - Michael Ruhlman
American author and foodie icon, who has written about the restaurant industry and collaborated on fine cookbooks.




Died:
1655 - Cyrano de Bergerac
1965 - Edogawa Rampo
2001 - Ahmed Sofa
2006 - David Gemmell
2012 - Carol Kendall

Monday, July 27, 2015

July 27

Born:


1824 - Alexandre Dumas (fils)
Son of the French author of the same name, his works have not attained the same acclaim. His novel La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias), however, was adapted by Verdi into the opera La Traviata.





1835 - Giosuè Carducci
Italian poet; winner of the 1906 Nobel Prize for Literature "not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces."



1870 - Hilaire Belloc
Anglo-French writer who was one of the most important "Men of Letters" in the early twentieth century.




1929 - Jack Higgins
Main pen name of the UK novelist Harry Patterson. He has written in many different series, most recently the  Sean Dillon novels.







1949 - Robert Rankin
British author of humorous novels who refers to his genre as "Far Fetched Fiction." His fan club is called "The Order of the Golden Sprout."






1958 - Kate Elliott
Pen name of American science fiction and fantasy author Alis A. Rasmussen








1973 - Cassandra Clare
American author of young adult fiction, known for her series The Mortal Instruments.




Died:
1946 - Gertrude Stein

Sunday, July 26, 2015

July 26

Born:



1856 - George Bernard Shaw
Irish playwright, the only person to have won both a Nobel Prize for Literature and a  Oscar (for his work adapting his play Pygmalion for the 1938 film of the same name.)




1875 - Carl Jung
Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology. An incredibly prolific writer; his collected works run to 19 volumes.







1894 - Aldous Huxley
English writer most well known for his novel Brave New World, and his advocacy of psychedelics. He died at age 69, several hours after JFK was assassinated, having had his wife inject him with LSD.






1897 - Paul Gallico
American novelist known for works like The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure, which was adapted into the 1972 film.




1923 - Jan Berenstain
American author who, with her husband Stan, are known for creating the children's series The Berenstain Bears.








1928 - Bernice Rubens
Welsh novelist who won the Booker Prize in 1970 for The Elected Member. Her novel Madame Sousatzka was made into a film starring Shirley MacLaine.







1928 - Ibn-e-Safi
The pen name of Asrar Ahmed, an Indian writer of spy novels in Urdu. His most well-known series are Jasoosi Dunya and the Imran series. Died on this day in 1980.






1950 - Nicholas Evans
English journalist and author whose The Horse Whisperer was a bestseller in the United States.







1959 - Rick Bragg
American author and journalist, best known for his non-fiction and biography, like Ava's Man.




Died:
1915 - James Murray
1980 - Ibn-e-Safi
1999 - Walter Jackson Bate