May 2: Jerome K. Jerome, British humorist

BORN MAY 2:

Name Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) was an English humorist and playwright who wrote the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat and its sequel Three Men on the Bummel, as well as the books of essays Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. Three Men in a Boat--the story of, well, three men messing about in a boat on the Thames--was a phenomenon, and popularized boating on the Thames such that boat registrations went up 50% the year after it was published. It has never been out of print, and has been adapted into films, TV, radio shows, stage plays, and even a musical. None of his subsequent novels (at least 10), essay collections (at least 15), short stories (at least 11), plays (at least 24), nor his autobiography ever achieved the success of that first silly book.

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Apr. 24: Anthony Trollope, English novelist

BORN APRIL 24:

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was an English novelist probably best known today for the the six novels of the series The Chronicles of Barsetshire, which included Barchester Towers. He wrote another series of six, a series of five, and 30 stand alone novels; over 40 short stories; 17 works of non-fiction; at least 20 articles; two plays; and several volumes of collected letters. This raises the question: how did he become "one of the most prolific writers of all time" while fulfilling his duties as a postal clerk and inspector? The answer was: a new-found discipline (previously he had been known as unpunctual and insubordinate) that pushed him to write on the trains during his inspection journeys. (There's a lesson in this for you, Jim Bucket!)

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Apr. 17: Isak Dinesen, Danish author

BORN APRIL 17:

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) was a Danish author who wrote novels, poems, and short stories, and was known for Out of Africa; Seven Gothic Tales; and "Babette's Feast." She was a woman of many names: born Karen Dinesen, "Isak" is a pen name, as was Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel. She married Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke, and ended up with the weighty name Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke. "Isak Dinesen" will do nicely. Out of Africa, which became a film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford that won Best Picture and Best Director (Sydney Pollack) Oscars, was based on her life while living in Kenya (1914-1931); the film version of her story "Babette's Feast" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

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Apr. 3: Washington Irving, American writer

BORN APRIL 3:

Washington Irving (1783-1859), American short story writer, essayist, and historian, is considered to be the first American author to become a best-seller in Europe. His best-known works are short stories like "Rip Van Winkle," about a man who falls asleep in the woods for over 20 years; and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," about a "Headless Horseman" playing a prank on poor schoolteacher Ichabod Crane. Though these popular tales are lighthearted, Irving was quite a serious author, who drew on local history for these stories, and was in fact as much a historiographer and biographer as he was a storyteller. He wrote biographies of great men like George Washington (in five volumes!) and Muhammad, as well as histories of Spain (he was in fact U.S. ambassador to Spain between 1842 and 1846). Irving was named for George Washington, whom he was lucky enough to meet at age six. In addition to his own work, Washington Irving inspired such 19th-century American greats as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), and Edgar Allan Poe.

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Mar. 25: Flannery O'Connor, American writer

BORN MARCH 25:

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist who wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as other works. She often wrote in a sardonic Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on misfits in regional settings. A staunch Roman Catholic, she frequently examined questions of morality and ethics. Her novel Wise Blood is about a wounded returning WWII vet and how he copes with his loss of religious faith; the other one, The Violent Bear It Away, tells of a fourteen-year-old boy trying to escape his uncle's plans to make him a religious "prophet." Two of her short stories stand out: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (her best-known work) examines morality through the encounter of a family with an escaped convict. "Everything That Rises Must Converge" tells of the experience of a boy and his mother on a bus after the integration of their city's transportation system.

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Mar. 22: Louis L'Amour, American author of western novels

BORN MARCH 22:

Louis L'Amour (1908-1988) was an American author of western novels. Walk into my parents' den and you'll see a shelfful of paper backs with his name on the spine. My dad loved them, and while I haven't read all 105 of his works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction), I've read a lot of them. Over three dozen were made into movies or TV shows, and he seldom strayed from the Old West. In the Sackett series (19 novels and two short stories), he created a dynasty of characters, some of whom have been played by the likes of Sam Elliott, Tom Selleck, and others. John Wayne, Anthony Quinn, and many more have played characters from his other books. Two of my favorites: The Californios, with tons of early California history; and Haunted Mesa, a "Weird West" sci-fi novel wrapped up with Pueblo Indian mythology.

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Feb. 27: John Steinbeck, American author

BORN FEBRUARY 27:

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was an American author of novels (33), non-fiction books (6), and short stories (2 collections), who has been called "a giant of American letters." Generally set in central California (or Baja California, Mexico), his books include The Grapes of Wrath (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), about Depression-era migrants from Oklahoma; Of Mice and Men, about two other vagrants; Cannery Row, set in Monterey not far from his birthplace in Salinas, CA; Tortilla Flat, East of Eden, The Red Pony, The Pearl, and many more, leading to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. His work frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as these applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

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Feb. 17: Mo Yan, Chinese author

BORN FEBRUARY 17:

Mo Yan (1955 - ) (born Guan Moye) Chinese novelist and short story writer whose winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2012) stirred controversy for his pro-Communist-Party associations. His best-known work in the west is the 1987 Red Sorghum Clan, which revolves around three generations of a family in Shandong (the author's home province) between 1923 and 1976. To date he has written ten other novels, as well as collections of short stories and novellas, and essays.

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Feb. 2: James Joyce, Irish author

BORN FEBRUARY 2:

James Joyce (1882-1941) Irish novelist, short-story writer, and poet. The semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is readable, as are the wonderful stories in The Dubliners. Ulysses is more of a challenge, but is on many "best books" lists anyway; but only the brave--or foolhardy--attempt Finnegans Wake.

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Jan. 24: Edith Wharton, American writer

BORN JANUARY 24:

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) American novelist and short story writer who portrayed the lives and morals of the upper classes of New York in the "Gilded Age." Major works include The House of Mirth; Ethan Frome; and The Age of Innocence (won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1920)

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Jan. 19: Edgar Allan Poe, American writer

BORN JANUARY 19:

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) American poet and short story writer and--it was perhaps-unfairly alleged--dope fiend. Notable short stories (he wrote nearly 70) include "The Cask of Amontillado"; "The Fall of the House of Usher"; "The Masque of the Red Death"; "The Pit and the Pendulum"; The Tell-Tale Heart"; and two stories featuring a detective, which Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Homes) called the "root from which a whole literature has developed": "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter." Despite the quality of his poems like "Annabel Lee"; "Eldorado"; and "To Helen," all are outstripped in fame by The Raven.

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Jan. 18: A. A. Milne, British writer

BORN JANUARY 18:

A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne (1882-1956) English novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, and short-story writer, and, most notably, author of children's literature: he was the "father" of Winnie-the-Pooh (and the father of Christopher Robin Milne)

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Jan. 14: Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer

BORN JANUARY 14:

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) stunningly evocative Japanese novelist, playwright, poet, short story writer, and essayist. A Shintoist and active right-wing nationalist, he opposed Japan's increasing western-style materialism and postwar turn to democracy and globalism. To prove his point, he and four followers entered a Tokyo military base and took its commandant hostage, attempting to overthrow Japan's 1947 Constitution. After a speech and a cry of "Long live the Emperor!", he committed seppuku ("hara-kiri"), the favored mode of death of the samurai. Works include Confessions of a Mask; The Temple of the Golden Pavilion; The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea; The Sea of Fertility tetralogy (Spring Snow; Runaway Horses; The Temple of Dawn; The Decay of the Angel); and Hagakure Nyumon, which examines living the Samurai Way in modern life.

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Jan. 12: Jack London, American writer

BORN JANUARY 12:

Jack London (1876-1916) American novelist, short story writer, journalist, and activist, and one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. His rough-and-ready novels include The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf; and stories "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," "Love of Life," "The Pearls of Parlay," and "The Heathen"; the non-fiction work The People of the Abyss was an exposé of the conditions of the working class in the east end of London.

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Jan. 2: Isaac Asimov, American sci-fi writer and scientist

BORN JANUARY 2:

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) prolific American sci-fi writer and professor of biochemistry; with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers. The Foundation series (seven books) is required reading; then, maybe, the stories in I, Robot; the Galactic Empire series; the Robot series; Nightfall; and essay collections.

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Jan. 1: J. D. Salinger, American writer

BORN JANUARY 1:

J. D. Salinger (1919-2010) American short story writer and novelist. The Catcher in the Rye is tackled in many a classroom; its success drove Salinger to become a recluse. All of his books are worth reading (I have!); after Catcher, start with Nine Stories; then Franny and Zooey; then Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.

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Dec. 30: Rudyard Kipling, Indian-born English writer

BORN DECEMBER 30:

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) Indian-born English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist, whose "children's books" say more than many "adult books" these days; The Jungle Book; Just So Stories; Kim; Captains Courageous; poems "If—"; "Gunga Din"; "The White Man's Burden"; Nobel Prize in Literature (1907)

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Dec. 14: Shirley Jackson, American writer

BORN DECEMBER 14:

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) American novelist and short story writer; The Haunting of Hill House; "Charles"; "The Lottery." It's hard to believe that the whimsical "Charles," about a kid who gets away with figurative murder, could come from the same mind that produced "The Lottery," about literal ritualized murder. But there it is.

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Dec. 11: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and activist

BORN DECEMBER 11:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) Russian novelist, historian, and short story writer better known for his outspoken criticism of communism and his activism regarding political repression in the Soviet Union (USSR). This led to eight years of imprisonment, described in works like The First Circle, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and The Gulag Archipelago. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1970).

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Dec. 8: James Thurber, American cartoonist and author

BORN DECEMBER 8:

James Thurber (1894-1961) American cartoonist and author. His best-known short story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," gained fame in two movie adaptations. "The Catbird Seat" and "The Unicorn in the Garden" are also well known, as is his autobiography, My Life and Hard Times. He also wrote children's books.

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