This week we celebrate the life of Joyce Carol Oates, celebrated author, poet, and playwright. As the author of over forty novels, short stories, plays, volumes of poetry, and non-fiction, she is known and loved around the world for her work.
Imagine standing in a crowd watching paint dry. For most of us, we could not picture anything more boring. However, most of us were never able to watch the immensely talented LeRoy Neiman paint. Known for his public paintings of anything and everything, Neiman is one of the most recognized and revered expressionist painters of the twentieth century.
Thanks to high-school classrooms around the world, many of us are familiar with Dante Alighieri and the first of portion of his epic poem The Inferno, which chronicles man’s descent into Hell. However, this poem is part of a much larger work known as the Divine Comedy, which tells then of man’s travel through purgatory and finally into the gates of paradise. This work is widely considered the most important piece of Italian literature ever written.
May 31, 1819 marks the birth of one of the nation’s most influential poets! Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, New York, the second of nine children to parents Walter and Louisa Whitman. He grew up in a family that would struggle financially throughout much of his childhood. When Whitman was three years old, his family left their ever-shrinking farm for what they hoped would be the riches of New York City.
When you think of famous women, lots of people might come to mind, from author’s to movie stars to politicians, however, not very many people have been able to successfully do more than one of those things. The list below encompasses some of the most important women leaders and contributors to of our time who have also produced some acclaimed, noteworthy, and highly collectible books.
Many of us have never been fly fishing, have never enjoyed the silence of a morning spent quietly on the banks of a river – just you, your pole, and nature. Those who have know that there is something that is beautiful beyond words in the quiet cast of the lure and the technique involved in casting the perfect line.Part of the beauty of fly fishing comes from the incredibly detailed and intricately tied flies. One of the most impressive and aesthetically gifted salmon fly tyers of all time was a man name Major John Popkin Traherne.
William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863 in San Francisco, the son of the millionaire mining engineer, gold mine owner and US Senator, George Hearst. Because he came from money, Hearst's early life was certainly not one of hardships. He went to prep school at St. Paul’s School in Concord New Hampshire, and matriculated to Harvard in 1885. He, however, never actually finished his degree as he was eventually expelled for antics such as hosting massive beer parties in Harvard Square.
Born April 24, 1905, Robert Penn Warren was a groundbreaking poet, author, literary critic and civil rights activist. His poetry and his prose were both well enough received to earn him the Pulitzer Prize, making him the only person to have ever won a Pulitzer Prize for both fiction and poetry. He won for fiction with what is perhaps his best known work, All the Kings Men, published in 1946.
"We play music about as well as Metallica writes novels."
-Dave Barry
Why would authors like Dave Barry and Scott Turow be playing terrible music?! They're members of a band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, a musical group of bestselling authors who play to raise money for a number of literacy charities. When Turow isn't busy playing with the Rock Bottom Remainders, he's writing bestsellers or working at an international law firm.
Born on April 12, 1949 in Chicago, Turow has written nine bestselling works of fiction and won multiple literary awards. His books have been translated into more than forty languages. The Los Angeles Times once said in a review, "No one writes better mystery suspense than Turow." It's no surprise, then, that his works are popular among collectors of modern first editions.
If you love a good spy novel, chances are you have read many of Tom Clancy’s works. But Tom Clancy was not just an author, but the king of a media empire, with his name attached to video games, movies, and non-fiction books on military topics. He was even part owner of the Baltimore Orioles.
Thomas Leo Clancy was born on April 12, 1947 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the second child of Thomas Clancy, a mailman, and Catherine Clancy. He grew up an extremely active reader and lover of history, in particular the works of naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison. Due to his religious upbringing, Clancy's parents worked very hard to ensure he was able to receive a Jesuit education, both in high school and in college. Clancy earned a degree in English Literature from Loyola College, again showing his love of the written word.
