It’s the birthday of Danish author Peter Høeg (1957), best known for his internationally bestselling thriller Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1992, film adaptation 1997) and for his somewhat recluse behavior. Høeg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and educated at the University of Copenhagen, where he earned a master’s in lit in 1984. His first novel, [...]
It’s the birthday of prolific and refreshingly modest British author H.E. Bates (1905-1974), one of the greatest writers you’ve never heard of. Bates is probably best known for his novella The Darling Buds of May (1958) but was also considered by the likes of Graham Greene to be the greatest short story author of his [...]
It’s the birthday of L. Frank Baum (1856-1919, #theresnoplacelikehome), best known for his children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), which was the first in a series of 14 books about Oz. A stage version of the book first appeared in Chicago in 1902, and the now-classic movie was released in 1939. Baum was [...]
It’s the birthday of Gillian Bradshaw (b. 1956), who writes historical fiction set everywhere and everywhen from Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece to Sub-Roman and Roman Britain and who also writes fantasy, science fiction, and children’s lit. Bradshaw was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Santiago, Chile, and Michigan, where she attended the [...]
It’s the birthday of Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989), who is best known and loved for her classic Gothic romance novel Rebecca (1938) but who is also, interestingly, the author of the story “The Birds” (1952) on which Hitchcock based his 1963 film. Du Maurier was born in London (her father was the famous actor-manager Sir [...]
It’s the birthday of Caroline B. Cooney (b. 1947), author of more than 90 mystery, suspense, romance, and horror novels for young adults, including The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), in which 15 year old Janie Johnson sees her own childhood face on a milk carton and must ask whether her loving parents actually [...]
It’s the birthday of Richard Adams (1920-2016, #nicelonglife), whose novel Watership Down (1972) about a colony of rabbits searching for a new home was an instant bestseller and ultimately sold more than 50 million copies. Adams was born in Wash Common, Berkshire, England, and spent his childhood exploring the Berkshire Downs, where he would one [...]
It’s the birthday of Peter Benchley (1940-2006), best known as the author of Jaws (1974), which sold 20 million copies, and later as a prominent conservationist advocating for the protection of sharks and oceans. Benchley was born in New York City into a literary family: his father was the novelist and children’s author Nathaniel Benchley, [...]
It’s the birthday of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013), who won the prestigious Booker Prize for her 1975 novel Heat and Dust but who is better known for her Academy Award-winning screenplays of two E.M. Forster novels, A Room with a View (1986) and Howards End (1992), and for the other 20 films she worked on [...]
It’s the birthday of Allen G. Odell (1904ish-1994), the Burma Shave executive who developed and wrote the rhyming jingles for Burma Shave displayed on small signs 100 feet apart, an advertising stunt that became hugely popular on rural American roads in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. (No, it’s not the Great American Novel. But probably [...]
It’s the birthday of British novelist and playwright Dodie Smith (1896-1990), best known today for her novel The One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956), which was adapted for film twice (1961, 1996). But Smith’s greatest work is arguably the coming-of-age novel I Capture the Castle (1948), voted one of Britain’s 100 best-loved novels in 2003. [...]
It’s the birthday of Peggy Bacon (1895-1987, #nicelonglife), who was the author and/or illustrator of 60-some books and won great recognition for both her art and her writing, including an Edgar Allen Poe Mystery Award nomination for her novel The Inward Eye (1952). Margaret Frances Bacon was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to two artists; her [...]