blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, Edith Warton was born on January 24, 1862 into the family of George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander in New York City. Her family was incredibly wealthy and was said to have been the family upon which the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” originated. As a result of this wealth, Wharton enjoyed a privileged upbringing and traveled extensively throughout Europe a member of Society at every turn, this led to a writing style which through its use of dramatic irony was supremely critical of the upper class and its way of life.

Celebrated English poet and leader of the Romantic movement, George Gordon Byron, is as well known for his personal life as for his poetry Byron famously embodied the Romantic hero, and influenced countless other writers including Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emily Brontë, and Alexander Pushkin.

Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr. was born January 20, 1930 to a career military man and his wife Marion. Nicknamed “Buzz” when his sister called him “buzzer” instead of “brother,” he served in combat during the Korean War as an Air Force fighter pilot and went on to become the second human to walk on the surface of the moon.

Best selling author and award winning journalist and documentarian Sebastian Junger was born January 17, 1962 in Belmont, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Wesleyan University. He has covered the world's worst humanitarian crises and conflicts for Vanity Fair and ABC News, and his work has been published in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Men’s Journal, and more.

When you think of a great read, you probably don't think about mountaineering, but Maurice Herzog’s account of his climb of Annapurna, the world’s tenth highest peak, is acclaimed as one of the best sports books ever written. It's also the bestselling mountaineering book ever written and figures prominently into many a sports- or mountaineering-focused collection.

Born on January 14, 1957, Anchee Min was raised in Shanghai, China, learning how to write “Long live Chairman Mao” before writing her own name. Growing up believing in power of Communism and Mao, she was torn at a young age, being forced to testify against one of her beloved school teachers for her reconnaissance. She excelled in school, especially writing. However, at the age of seventeen, she was sent away to work in a labor camp. This camp not only damaged her physically—injuring her spinal cord severely—she was brutally impaired mentally as well; restricting her ability to read, write, and dress the way she wanted. Feeling as if she was to be trapped there forever, she was finally released when she was discovered by talent scouts while working in a cotton field. The talent agents were looking to create a propaganda film for Madame Mao and Min was selected due to her “proletarian” appearance.

However, before the film was finished, Chairman Mao passed away and his wife, Jiang Qing was blamed for the uprisings that followed and was arrested and sentenced to death. Min’s association to the Mao organization through the film labeled her as an outcast from society and she was bullied and forced to mentally reform herself to think along the same lines as the rest of society.

No childhood could be complete without a good helping of talking animals, whether they appear in books, TV shows, movies, or theater productions. While chatty squirrels and dogs are the norm in today's children's stories, one trailblazer stands out from the past: Hugh Lofting, the imaginative mind behind Doctor Doolittle. In his classic works, the titular character is a doctor who exclusively treats animals after discovering his unique ability to communicate with them. The stories began as children's books, but they have been repeatedly adapted for screen, stage, and radio.

Hendrik Willem van Loon had a distinct ability to take dry, historical facts, and make them come alive for his young readers. He published over 50 works in his lifetime, most of it nonfiction targeted at children and young adults. He also illustrated many of his works himself. Van Loon was awarded the first Newbery Medal in December of 1922.

Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was an English professor at Columbia University, the author of fourteen mystery novels written under the pseudonym Amanda Cross, and a mother of three successful children. On October 9, 2003, she finished her morning routine of reading and writing, took a walk around Central Park with a close friend, and sent a series of emails to colleagues. Then she ingested an overdose of pills and covered her head with a plastic bag until she died.

Charles Perrault (January 12, 1628 – May 16, 1703) was the most influential Frenchman you’ve never heard of. As secretary to Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis the Great’s Minister of Finance, Perrault was responsible for matters of French arts and sciences for over twenty years. He used his influence to achieve both personal and nationalistic goals, eventually laying the foundation for an entire genre of literature.