July 17

Born:

1888 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Hebrew author; co-winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people."

1889 - Erle Stanley Gardner
American lawyer and author of mysteries, most well known for the Perry Mason series.

1917 - Phyllis Diller
American actress and comedienne, and author of a few books of humor and autobiography.

1921 - Robert V. Remini
American historian who won the 1984 National Book Award for Nonfiction for the third volume of his biography of Andrew Jackson.

1924 - Olive Ann Burns
American writer whose single completed novel, Cold Sassy Tree, has become an oft-assigned read in school classes.

1932 - Karla Kuskin
American author, illustrator and reviewer of children's books.

1943 - LaVyrle Spencer
American author of romance novels, who has had 17 different titles on the New York Times bestseller list.

1951 - Mark Bowden
American journalist ad author, best known for his 1999 book Black Hawk Down, which was made into a popular movie.

1954 - J. Michael Straczynski
American comic book writer who has also published three horror novels and a book on screenwriting, in addition to many film and TV writing credits.

1971 - Cory Doctorow
Canadian-British science fiction author and blogger at Boing Boing. He is a Fellow of the Electronic Freedom Foundation and has released many of his books with Creative Commons licensing.




Died:
1790 - Adam Smith
1907 - Hector Malot
1998 - Lillian Hoban
2001 - Katharine Graham
2006 - Mickey Spillane