John Champlin Gardner (not to be confused with the James Bond author John Edmund Gardner) was a successful American writer and academic. Born July 21, 1933, he is best known for Grendel, his retelling of Beowulf, and On Moral Fiction, his controversial volume of literary criticism.
Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate and anti-apartheid activist, died peacefully in her home Sunday evening with her children at her side.
J. K. Rowling has published a new short story about Harry Potter on her website, Pottermore.com. The story, entitled "Dumbledore's Army Reunites at Quidditch World Cup Final" is written as a gossip column by character Rita Skeeter and describes many of the Harry Potter characters as adults.
Writer Ian McEwan was born June 21, 1948. He won the Man Booker Prize in 1998 for his novel Amsterdam and was nominated for the award six times to date. He earned a host of other prizes including the WH Smith Literary Award, National Book Critics’ Circle Fiction Award, and the Jerusalem Prize. In 2008, The Times named McEwan one of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.” He is best known for his novels, The Cement Garden (1978), Black Dogs (1992), Amsterdam (1998), and Atonement (2001).
This week we celebrate the life of author Saul Bellow, winner of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and three National Book Awards. He is most famous for his novels, The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and Henderson the Rain King. How well do you know this classic American writer? Test your knowledge against these ten facts.
Nobel Prize-winner, Ferit Orhan Pamuk, was born to a wealthy Turkish family on June 7, 1952. His novels have been translated into 55 languages and his work has sold over eleven million copies worldwide. As a child and young adult, Pamuk devoted himself to painting. Yet at age 23, he put his paints aside and began writing his first novel, Cevdet Bey and Sons.
Although renowned as a novelist and screenwriter, Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry was above all a passionate book collector. A bookseller for more fifty years, McMurtry began writing as a way to fund his book purchases. He acquired quite a few—his own personal collection contains over thirty thousand volumes and his bookstore holds another 200,000. He said, "The tradition I was born into was essentially nomadic, a herdsmen tradition, following animals across the earth. The bookshops are a form of ranching; instead of herding cattle, I herd books.”
Peter Hardman Burnett was a man of contradiction. A bank president and an adventurer, an abolitionist and a racist, Burnett was also the first governor of California and the first man to resign that office. Despite his mixed legacy, Burnett’s life was nothing if not interesting.
In the second of a two-part interview, Moshe Prigan—an accomplished book collector, freelance writer, and retired teacher of art and history—shares his experience about building his rare book collection and provides guidance for novice book collectors.
This week we celebrate Mitch Albom, bestselling author, playwright, musician, and philanthropist. Best known for his memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie, Albom’s books have sold over 35 million copies and have been translated into 45 languages.
