It’s the birthday of Louis Auchincloss (1917-2010), estate lawyer and novelist who wrote over 60 books about the privileged upper crust old money Manhattan world he hailed from. (Think of Auchincloss as a male Edith Wharton, only less so.) Auchincloss was born on Long Island, New York, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. From [...]
It’s the birthday of writer and horse lover Jane Smiley (b. 1949), whose 1991 novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer and who has sometimes been called “America’s greatest living novelist.” (Discuss.) Smiley was born in Los Angeles but moved in infancy to St. Louis, Missouri; her father left early on and she never saw [...]
It’s the birthday of William Faulkner (1897-1962), middle name Cuthbert, who became perhaps the greatest figure in Southern Gothic literature, to the point that all later Southern authors have been doomed to comparison. Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in 1949, and the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is partially named for him. (The “Faulkner” part.) [...]
It’s the birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), known for his novels and stories about the Jazz Age, and particularly known for writing the novel zillions of American high school students are forced to read every year, The Great Gatsby (1925). I don’t think you’re allowed to call yourself an American if you haven’t read [...]
It’s the birthday of Stephen King (b. 1947), the King of Horror (ha—see what I did there? I’m sure I’m the first to think of that) and one of the bestselling authors of all time—the sort of author, in fact, that prompts one to google “bestselling authors of all time,” which I have done for [...]
It’s the birthday of poet, memoirist, and essayist Donald Hall (1928-2018), U.S. poet laureate from 2006-2007 and one of the most important poets of his generation. He’s best known as a rural poet who focused on the natural world and used simple language that nonetheless often had a surrealistic effect. Hall was born and raised [...]
It’s the birthday of Sir William Golding (1911-1993), author of Lord of the Flies (1954), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1983), and lifelong proponent that “man produces evil as a bee produces honey.” Golding was born in the village of St. Columb Minor near the coastal town of Newquay in Cornwall, England. He [...]
It’s the birthday of one of the most important intellectual and literary figures of the 18th century, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). Johnson wrote everything from essays to biography to poetry but is best known for his Dictionary of the English Language. Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, and had lifelong health problems after contracting tuberculosis [...]
Today is the birthday of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), one of those people who thought he could be both a successful doctor and a brilliant poet and writer, and who turned out to be right. Among his accomplishments were becoming chief of pediatrics at a general hospital in Paterson, New Jersey, winning the National Book [...]
Today is the birthday of Irish novelist and short story author Bernard MacLaverty (b. 1942), whose novels have been called quietly brilliant and whose first novel in 16 years, Midwinter Break, just came out in 2017. MacLaverty’s novels have been shortlisted for many major awards, including the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award. MacLaverty [...]
Today is the birthday of such an array of fascinating and important authors that one is tempted to give up and go hide with a good book. It’s the birthday of one of the big ones, Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), best known for his novel Robinson Crusoe, sometimes called the first English novel (but them’s fightin’ [...]
It’s the birthday of one of science fiction’s most prominent authors, Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), whose first name required me to figure out how to get a Polish “L with stroke” out of my keyboard, so that’s six or seven minutes of my life I’m not getting back. Lem is best known for his novels Solaris [...]