April is National Poetry Month, and beautiful verses are popping up everywhere. Many noted authors have also written poems, which are often much lesser known--and therefore more scarce. These volumes are lovely additions to an author-specific or poetry collection.
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. The book would be the first of twelve Bond novels and two short-story collections that Fleming wrote himself, and the first in a long line of Bond novels by multiple other authors like John Gardner and Raymond Benson.
Born February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, John Steinbeck truly made a mark on America as a writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a novel that captured the daily struggles and strife of the Great Depression. Steinbeck wrote novels, travelogues, short story collections, and non-fiction, and his exceptional contributions to literature earned him the 1962 Nobel Prize. Steinbeck and his work have long fascinated collectors.
Born in Newark, New Jersey on March 19, 1933, Philip Roth began publishing short stories in 1956. His first book, Goodbye, Columbus (1959) won the National Book Award, and since then he has published more than 22 books. In the 1990s, Roth won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Patrimony (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Operation Shylock (1993), and the National Book Award for Sabbath's Theater (1995). American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), the first two volumes of Roth's trilogy, received the Pulitzer Prize and many others.
Today we celebrate the birthday of John Updike, whose uncanny ability to write beauty into the mundane earned him numerous literary accolades and a position as one of America's legendary authors. Updike drew influence from a wide variety of authors, but it is perhaps Vladimir Nabokov who most profoundly impacted Updike's work. Though the two authors never met, they openly admired one another's work.
Today is the birthday of both John Irving and Tom Wolfe. These two legendary authors have made incredible contributions to American literature. They also launched one of the best known feuds of modern times.
Today we celebrate the birthday of Charles Dickens, a beloved author whose works defined the Victorian era. It's the perfect time to introduce our colleague and friend, the inimitable Vic Zoschak. Vic is the proprietor of Tavistock Books in Alameda, CA.
Today is the birthday of legendary author JRR Tolkien. To celebrate the day, we sat down to talk with Pieter Collier, leading Tolkien collector and scholar. Since 2002, Collier has maintained The Tolkien Library, a website dedicated to all things JRR Tolkien. Collier has been fascinated with Tolkien since childhood, and he's built an incredibly impressive collection around the author.
