You’re familiar with the old adage, “Nice guys finish last”, right? Made famous by legendary Dodgers baseball manager Leo Durocher, it posits that if you’re going to get ahead in baseball (or anything in this world) then you better not … Continue reading
Today is Tolkien Reading Day and the theme of Tolkien Reading Day 2018 is Home and Hearth: the many ways of being a Hobbit. I first fell in love with Tolkien’s work when a classmate in the 10th grade sold … Continue reading
A few weeks ago Book Riot ran the results of a survey they took about the “10 Scariest Books You’ve Read” and while the outcome was not all that surprising (Stephen King books grab the majority), I thought I’d throw … Continue reading
It was on this day 105 years ago that the man who is often quoted as saying “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” did, in fact, really die. What Samuel ‘Mark Twain’ Clemens actually said to the … Continue reading
It was on this day in 1850 that “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was first published. I remember my 11th grade American Literature teacher in high school assigning it to us to read and how legalistic in their religious … Continue reading
It’s the birthday of Jack Kerouac, born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922. He was from a working-class French-Canadian family; he grew up speaking French, and he wasn’t fluent in English until he was a teenager. In New York … Continue reading
I first discovered Dr. Seuss when I was 5 years old and in kindergarten. Our bookshelf contained “The Cat in the Hat”, “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”, “Horton Hears a Who”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and “How The … Continue reading
The following story about James Joyce is told by Stephen King in his famous memoir, “On Writing” (which I need to read again). A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across … Continue reading
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on this date in 1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin. I have to admit I’ve never read any of her books, though I used to immensely enjoy the TV series “Little House on the Prairie” starring Melissa … Continue reading
It’s the birthday of novelist Charles Dickens, born in Portsmouth, England in 1812. By the mid-1850s, Dickens was a popular and successful writer; his novels included The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-37), The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1837-39), … Continue reading
It was 78 years ago today that “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck was first published. I remember reading it for the first time in my 10th grade American Literature class 47 years ago and it’s probably time for … Continue reading
My favorite works of Poe’s are “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death”, both written in 1850 by Poe and read by me (the first time) in junior high school. But he is most well known for … Continue reading
Last week, actor, comedian and author Patton Oswalt was interviewed for the New York Times’ “By The Book” Sunday feature. I always love reading these because I usually come away from them with a new perspective on a book I’ve … Continue reading
Today would have been the 123rd birthday of J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien, born in 1892 to English parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa, where his father was working in a bank. Tolkien was always fascinated with languages; he went to … Continue reading
This is the first “How to” book for authors and those who want to be that I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of them) that covers ALL of the bases involved in writing and publishing your book, from the … Continue reading
It was on this day in 1946 that George Bernard Shaw wrote to the Reynolds News: “Christmas is for me simply a nuisance. The mob supports it as a carnival of mendacity, gluttony, and drunkenness. Fifty years ago, I invented … Continue reading
It was on this day in 1843 that Charles Dickens published “A Christmas Carol”, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, whom Dickens described as “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no … Continue reading
Today would have been Madeleine L’Engle’s 96th birthday, had she not passed away in 2007. Madeleine L’Engle was the author of the Newbery Medal Award-winning novel “A Wrinkle in Time”, which is one of my favorite books from my childhood. … Continue reading
Best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut Jr., born on this day in 1922, would have turned 92 today if he had not passed away on April 11, 2007. Author of “Cat’s Cradle”, “Breakfast of Champions” and, of course, “Slaughterhouse Five”, published at … Continue reading
Today is the birthday of writer Neil Gaiman, born in Portchester, England in 1960. Gaiman began his career as a comic book writer and in 1987 penned one of the best titles when he took a failed DC Comics character … Continue reading
