Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks: Author birthdays

Showing posts with label Author birthdays. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2022

BW33: Mary Jo Salter

Happy Sunday! This week we celebrate the birthday of American poet, Mary Jo Salter, who is co editor of the Norton Anthology of Poetry and a professor at John Hopkins University

Discovery

Mary Jo Salter

6:48 a.m., and leaden
little jokes about what heroes
we are for getting up at this hour.
Quiet. The surf and sandpipers running.
T minus ten and counting, the sun
mounting over Canaveral
a swollen coral, a color
bright as camera lights. We’re blind-
sided by a flash:

shot from the unseen
launching pad, and so from nowhere,

a flame-tipped arrow—no, an airborne

pen on fire, its ink a plume

of smoke which, even while zooming

upward, stays as oddly solid

as the braided tail of a tornado,

and lingers there as lightning would

if it could steal its own thunder.

—Which, when it rumbles in, leaves

under or within it a million

firecrackers going off, a thrill

of distant pops and rips in delayed

reaction, hitting the beach in fading

waves as the last glint of shuttle

receives our hands’ eye-shade salute:

the giant point of all the fuss soon

smaller than a star.

Only now does a steady, low

sputter above us, a lawn mower

cutting a corner of the sky,

grow audible. Look, it’s a biplane!—

some pilot’s long-planned, funny tribute

to wonder’s always-dated orbit

and the itch of afterthought. I swat

my ankle, bitten by a sand gnat:
what the locals call no-see-’ums.

Happy Birthday to Mary Jo Salter!

Our A to Z and Back again letter and word of the week are T and Tangible.

Please share your book thoughts reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

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Sunday, April 24, 2022

BW17: Happy Birthday Larry Niven

Happy Sunday! In honor of science fiction author, Larry Niven, who is celebrating his 84th birthday on April 30th, read one of his books. He's written over 400 stories since he published his first book in 1964, alone and in collaboration with Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes, and Gregory Benford. I discovered Niven back in the 70's and enjoyed reading His Ringworld series, along with many of his other books, including The Mote in God's Eye. He is currently working with Jerry Pournelle on Burning Mountain, the sequel to Burning City and Burning Tower.

Larry Niven Wiki/fandom

Fifty years of Larry Niven's Ringworld

Amazon’s Ringworld Moves Forward with Game of Thrones Director

21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever

The 17 Most Influential Science-Fiction Books of All Time

“They do not use lasers, they do not use radio, they do not use hyperwave. What are they using for communication? Telepathy? Written messages? Big mirrors?"

"Parrots," Louis suggested. He got up to join them at the door to the control room. "Huge parrots, specially bred for their oversized lungs. They're too big to fly. They just sit on hilltops and scream at each other.”

― Larry Niven, Ringworld

Which brings us to our A to Z and Back again - Our letter and word of the week are S and Space

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Sunday, March 27, 2022

BW13: Happy Birthday Dana Stabenow

“Science fiction is the agent provocateur of literature.” ~ Dana Stabenow

Happy Sunday my dears. During my web wanderings, I found out today, March the 27th is author Dana Stabenow's birthday. I checked out her blog and read an article about How My Mother and Josephine Tey Led me into a Life of Crime. Given I'd recently read Tey's A Daughter of Time, I was drawn. I was fascinated by Stabenow's tale of discovering Nancy Drew in the library and the start of her reading journey. Lots of interesting authors, some I've read, some I haven't yet. Stabenow is a prolific writer and has written forty novels during her writing career beginning with a couple of science fiction novels and segueing into writing murder mysteries.

It just so happens, one of the dusty books on my eshelves is Dana Stabenow's A Cold Day for Murder, book number one in the 22 book Kate Shugak mystery series. I think I bought back in 2014 around the time I was enamored with freezing cold settings and read Nevada Barr's Winter Study and bought a bunch of other titles with snow in them, some of which I had yet to read. Somehow I overlooked Stabenow's book so in honor of her birthday, I'll be reading it this week. And suddenly I'm also in the mood to reread James Rollins Ice Hunt.

Learn more about Kate Stabenow from The Thrill Begins: Meet Your Heroes - Dana Stabenow and PBS AK Alaska podcast Dana Stabenow talks about her latest crime novel, her writing career and her support for women writers and what books Stabenow likes to read with Poison Pen's Dana Stabenows Distractions.

A to Z and Back again - Our letter and word of the week are M and Murder (Obviously... LOL!)

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Sunday, January 23, 2022

BW4: Bookish Birthdays and Notes

Happy Sunday! Today is National Handwriting Day Which coincidently goes hand in hand (pun intended) with those letters we could have written in week 2. Yes, I know, I didn't either. But I have been having fun writing A to Z and back again stories, all by hand, and currently working on the letter K. How about you? Ready to give it a try yet?

A to Z and Back Again - our letter and word of the week is D - Deduction

Time for a round of literary birthdays and notes to tempt and amaze you:

Jan 23: French author Stendhal, American poet Louis Zukofsky, and West Indies poet Derek Walcott

Jan 24: American novelist Edith Wharton , English dramatist William Congreve, British novelist and zoologist Desmond Norris

Jan 25: Scottish poet Robert Burns, English poet William Somerset Maugham, and English novelist Virginia Woolf

Jan 26: American author and activist Angela Davis, and American Mary Mapes Dodge

Jan 27: English author Lewis Carroll, and English novelist D.M. Thomas

Jan 28: American author and activist Julius Lester, and French author Colette

Jan 29: American political author Thomas Paine, Russian playwright Anton Chekov and French novelist and Nobel Prize winner Romain Rolland

Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award Nominations

Screen grabbers: mysteries adapted for film

Nick Cave on Creativity, the Myth of Originality, and How to Find Your Voice

And Just Like That...Carrie Bradshaw's Library Card is a Must-Have Accessory

Have fun following rabbit trails!

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Sunday, October 24, 2021

BW43: At Seven a Son by Elaine Feinstein

Elaine Feinstein

In celebration of the late Elaine Feinstein, born October 24, 1930 and died at the age of 88 on September 23, 2019. Multifaceted writer of novels, short stories, poetry, teleplays and biographies.

At Seven a Son

In cold weather on a

garden swing, his legs

in wellingtons rising over

the winter rose trees

he sits serenely

smiling like a Thai

his coat open, his gloves

sewn to the flapping sleeves

his thin knees working

with his arms

folded about the

metal struts

as he flies up

(his hair like long

black leaves) he

lies back freely

astonished in

sunshine as serious

as a stranger he is

a bird in his own thought.

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 103. Maximilian

Chapter 104. Danglars’ Signature

Chapter 105. The Cemetery of Père-Lachaise

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Sunday, August 22, 2021

BW34: Doing is Being by Ray Bradbury

Today is the anniversary of one of my favorite writers Ray Bradbury who entertains and inspires me with his writing.

Doing is Being

Ray Bradbury

Doing is being.

To have done’s not enough.

To stuff yourself with doing — that’s the game.

To name yourself each hour by what’s done,

To tabulate your time at sunset’s gun

And find yourself in acts

You could not know before the facts

You wooed from secret self, which much needs wooing,

So doing brings it out,

Kills doubt by simply jumping, rushing, running

Forth to be

The new-discovered me.

To not do is to die,

Or lie about and lie about the things

You just might do some day.

Away with that!

Tomorrow empty stays

If no man plays it into being

With his motioned way of seeing.

Let your body lead your mind —

Blood the guide dog to the blind;

So then practice and rehearse

To find heart-soul’s universe,

Knowing that by moving/seeing

Proves for all time: Doing’s being!

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 85. The Journey

Chapter 86. The Trial

Chapter 87. The Challenge

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Sunday, August 15, 2021

BW33: Hugo Gernsback

This week, we are celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of Hugo Gernsback who was born August 16, 1884. Yes, you may be experiencing deja vu since I love to revisit Hugo every four years or so.

Hugo Gernsbacher was born in Luxembourg and immigrated to the United States in 1904. He was fascinated by electricity and invented a dry battery which he patented upon arriving in the United States.   He established a radio and electrical supply house called Electro Importing Company and developed a small portable radio transmitter called the Telimco Wireless Telegraph.    He went on to patent 80 inventions.

Gernsback published a magazine for electrical experimenters called Modern Electronics which was later taken over by Popular Science. To fill up some empty space in the magazine, he decided to write a futuristic story which ran in 12 installments. The story named Ralph 124C 41+ was later published in 1926. It was set in the 27th century and is still available today.

He started a number of magazines including the first magazine dedicated exclusively to science fiction called  Amazing Stories in 1926.  Hugo coined the term scientifiction which later went on to be known as Science Fiction.

He unfortunately went bankrupt and lost control of Amazing Stories. He quickly bounced back and went on to publish three more magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Quarterly. Air Wonder and Science Wonder were merged into one magazine Wonder stories in 1930 and sold it in 1936 to Beacon Publications where it continued to be published for 20 more years. Digital copies of Amazing Stories, Air Wonder, Science Wonder, and Wonder magazines are available to view through the Pulp Magazines Project.

Gernsback is lauded as one of the fathers of science fiction. In 1960 he was given a special Hugo Award as The Father of Magazine Science Fiction. The award were unofficially called the Hugo's until the name was officially changed beginning in 1993.

Hugo Gernsback died in New York on August 19, 1967 at the age 83.

If you are in the mood for more science fiction and fantasy fun, don't forget you can dive into Mind Voyages and explore the Hugo and Nebula winners and nominees, take side trips through the different decades reading the nominees, check out Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein or the all inclusive I'm going to Pluto because Pluto is still a planet as far as I'm concerned Voyage in which you can mix it up, choose the number of books you want to read from each voyage, include some new books you pick up along the way and enjoy the ride.

Links to all the voyages are available on the Mind Voyages blog.

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 82. The Burglary

Chapter 83. The Hand of God

Chapter 84. Beauchamp

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Sunday, July 18, 2021

BW29: The Cane-Bottom'd Chair by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Cane-Bottom’d Chair

William Makepeace Thackeray

July 18, 1811 - Dec. 24, 1863

In tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,

And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,

Away from the world and its toils and its cares,

I’ve a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,

But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;

And the view I behold on a sunshiny day

Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm’d in all nooks

With worthless old nicknacks and silly old books,

And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,

Crack’d bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all crack’d),

Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;

A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;

What matter? ’tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,

Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;

And ’tis wonderful, surely, what music you get

From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman’s camp;

By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;

A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:

’Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,

Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;

As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie

This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,

There’s one that I love and I cherish the best:

For the finest of couches that’s padded with hair

I never would change thee, my cane-bottom’d chair.

'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat,

With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;

But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,

I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,

A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms!

I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair;

I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair.

It was but a moment she sate in this place,

She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!

A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,

And she sate there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since,

Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;

Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,

The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,

In the silence of night as I sit here alone—

I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair—

My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair.

She comes from the past and revists my room;

She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;

So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,

And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair.

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Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 70. The Ball

Chapter 71. Bread and Salt

Chapter 72. Madame de Saint-Méran

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Sunday, March 21, 2021

BW12: A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

Butterfly Princess by Josephine Wall

Happy Sunday, my lovelies. Today is World Poetry Day so I'll leave you with a poem by one of my favorite poets.

A Prayer In Spring,

Robert Frost

(March 26, 1874)

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

To which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends he will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

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Count of Monte Cristo Readalong

Chapter 19. The Third Attack

Chapter 20. The Cemetery of the Château d’If

Chapter 21. The Island of Tiboulen

Share your thoughts on the previous events of the story.

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Sunday, November 15, 2020

BW46: Bookish Birthdays and Events

Happy Sunday! Today is I Love to Write Day so grab your pens or pencils and write a note, a poem, a letter, get back to work or start working on that novel you've been planning forever. Your muse is waiting for you. Are you ready for an interesting exercise? All you have to do is put pen to paper and answer the question, "Writing is like..." And no, writing isn't like a box of chocolates. *grin*

Meanwhile it's time for another round of author birthdays.

Nov 15: German novelist Gerhart Hauptmann who won the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature and poet Marianne Moore winner of the1951 Pulitzer Prize.

Nov 16: George S Kaufman, playwright and journalist as well as Portuguese novelist José Saramago, 1998 Nobel Prize winner, and Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.

Nov 17: Dutch Poet Joost van Den Vondel and civil war historian Shelby Foote

Nov 18: Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood and British dramatist Sir W.S. Gilbert

Nov 19: Poet Allen Tate

Nov 20: Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf, 1909 Nobel Prize winner, and South African novelist Nadine Gordimer, 1991 Nobel Prize winner.

Nov 21: French Philosopher Voltaire, and American feminist author, Marilyn French.

Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with Everybody Reads 2020: Native Voices: Own voices memoir, poetry and novels by Indigenous people or 31 Native American Authors to Read Right Now

Many book events around the world have turned to celebrating online this year and The Miami Book Fair's special events starts today with many authors interviews available on demand. As well as Portland Book Festival (November 5th through the 21st.), the Gaudeamus Book Fair in Romania (November 16th to the 22th) and Dublin Book Festival 2020 (November 27th through December 6th.)

The Baillie Gifford Prize 2020 longlist has been released for the best in Nonfiction with the winners to be announced November 15th and the winners of the 2020 National Book awards Longlist will be announced on November 18.

World Philosophy Day is coming up on Thursday, November 18 and a perfect time to dive into the mind of the 12 Famous Philosophers and Their Guiding Principles. Perhaps add one or two to your reading list for next year.

Have fun following rabbit trails!

Cheers!

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Sunday, July 12, 2020

BW28: Ode to Socks!

I’m in the mood to play. Who thought reading about socks could be so much fun? Shoes, Socks, Slippers, and Sandals, oh my! Read a book with socks on the cover, inside your wardrobe, or get creative with 35 Best Socks Books of All Time. Even read a book about feet under the covers. Wink, wink! Challenge yourself and read aloud the tongue twister Fox in Sock by Dr. Seuss. I guarantee a barrel of giggles throughout.

Ode to My Socks

Pablo Neruda

Maru Mori brought me

a pair

of socks

which she knitted herself

with her sheepherder’s hands,

two socks as soft

as rabbits.

I slipped my feet

into them

as though into

two

cases

knitted

with threads of

twilight

and goatskin.

Violent socks,

my feet were

two fish made

of wool,

two long sharks

sea-blue, shot

through

by one golden thread,

two immense blackbirds,

two cannons:

my feet

were honored

in this way

these

heavenly

socks.

They were

so handsome

for the first time

my feet seemed to me

unacceptable

like two decrepit

firemen, firemen

unworthy

of that woven

fire,

of those glowing

socks.

Nevertheless

I resisted

the sharp temptation

to save them somewhere

as schoolboys

keep

fireflies,

as learned men

collect

sacred texts,

I resisted

the mad impulse

to put them

into a golden

cage

and each day give them

birdseed

and pieces of pink melon.

Like explorers

in the jungle who hand

over the very rare

green deer

to the spit

and eat it

with remorse,

I stretched out

my feet

and pulled on

the magnificent

socks

and then my shoes.

The moral

of my ode is this:

beauty is twice

beauty

and what is good is doubly

good

when it is a matter of two socks

made of wool

in winter.

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Saturday, April 18, 2020

BW16: Bookish Potpourri

Hello my lovelies. Did you know today is World Plant a Vegetable Garden Day? How about just a plain old planting day. When I met my husband 28 years ago, he had two huge Hawaiian Schefflera plants growing in his shop and by the time we moved the business last October to our new building, it was still alive (barely) root bound, a messy clump of limbs and leaves, with its fair share of aphids, that none of us wanted to move. He saved a clipping and low and behold, roots began to grow and the plant lives on. I think it's time to repot, dontcha think?

Ramadan is coming up on the 20th and April 22nd is Earth Day and Arbor Day on the 24th. I think I jumped the gun on National Zucchini Bread day on April 25th because I baked a couple loaves of zucchini bread this past week of which we have devoured one loaf and the other is in the freezer for later.

So get to planting and cooking while listening to some great audiobooks or bookish podcasts.

Also consider reading a book which was written 50 years ago in 1970, 75 years ago in 1945, or maybe a 100 years ago in 1920, plus learn about 30 Newsworthy Anniversaries in April 2020.

Cuddle Up With the 25 Best New Books Coming Out in April 2020

We have several anniversaries of well known authors birthdays this week including William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Henry Fielding, Halldor Laxness, Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh, Daniel Defoe, and Anthony Trollope to name a few.

It's National Library Week and many libraries are providing online services.

Please also support your independent bookshops and help them stay afloat.

Don't forget it is still National Poetry Month. Bustle provides an interesting list of reads, and poets are taking open mic nights and readings online during April. Plus learn to write your own poems as well.

HOPE WAITS

I'm here, she says

Lean on me. Wait, don't go.

I have much to teach,

We have far to row.

I'll do my best for tomorrow

There is hope in my sorrow

We look, we listen, we wait.

We do our best to bear the hands of fate.

We are saved. I am here.

No more pain, no more fear.

Yes, I'll wait.

Stand tall, it's not too late.

Hope waits, hope gives,

Sorrow passes, hope lives.

Don't worry, don't hate

Sorrow walks alone through the gate.

Remember, no matter what

The door will not shut.

Nothing is beyond my reach.

I have much to teach.

Don't worry yourself so.

Save the tears for tomorrow.

Hope tells the tale,

blessings prevail.

Hope waits.

Blessings and good thoughts winging your way for a bright tomorrow!

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Sunday, March 22, 2020

BW12: Happy Birthday Billy Collins

Marginalia

Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,

skirmishes against the author

raging along the borders of every page

in tiny black script.

If I could just get my hands on you,

Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,

they seem to say,

I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -

'Nonsense.' 'Please! ' 'HA! ! ' -

that kind of thing.

I remember once looking up from my reading,

my thumb as a bookmark,

trying to imagine what the person must look like

why wrote 'Don't be a ninny'

alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest

needing to leave only their splayed footprints

along the shore of the page.

One scrawls 'Metaphor' next to a stanza of Eliot's.

Another notes the presence of 'Irony'

fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,

Hands cupped around their mouths.

'Absolutely,' they shout

to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.

'Yes.' 'Bull's-eye.' 'My man! '

Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points

rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college

without ever having written 'Man vs. Nature'

in a margin, perhaps now

is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own

and reached for a pen if only to show

we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;

we pressed a thought into the wayside,

planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria

jotted along the borders of the Gospels

brief asides about the pains of copying,

a bird signing near their window,

or the sunlight that illuminated their page-

anonymous men catching a ride into the future

on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,

they say, until you have read him

enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,

the one that dangles from me like a locket,

was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye

I borrowed from the local library

one slow, hot summer.

I was just beginning high school then,

reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,

and I cannot tell you

how vastly my loneliness was deepened,

how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,

when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears

and next to them, written in soft pencil-

by a beautiful girl, I could tell,

whom I would never meet-

'Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.'

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