There were lots of great authors’ birthdays this week that I just couldn’t get around to memorializing.
C.S. Lewis, b. 11/29/1898.
Louisa May Alcott, b. 11/29/1832 Her best books are Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom, by the way IMHO.
Madeleine L’Engle, 11/29/1918 I really should have blogged about this one. I really like Madeleine L’engle, especially her books The Love Letters (out of print) and A Severed Wasp. I’m planning on reading A Wrinkle in Time to the children as soon as we finish Johnny Tremain
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), b. 11/30/1835
Winston Churchill, b. 11/30/1874.
Jonathan Swift, b. 11/30/1667 Swift should be recognized for writing the essay A Modest Proposal in which he proposes that the poor of Ireland eat their excess children so as to put an end to their poverty. Unfortunately, I am told that some college students who read this proposal in these benighted times do not understand that it is satire and that JS was not seriously advocating the wholesale slaughter of infants for the convenience and enrichment of their parents.
L.M. Montgomery, b. 11/30/1874 Montgomery, of course, wrote the beloved Anne of Green Gables and seven more Anne books in addition to three books about another heroine, Emily of New Moon and various and sundry other books–all of which are favorites among the females around here. Eldest Daughter tried to get her dad to read Anne of Green Gables, but he never quite got into it.
Finally, for today, the author is one of my three favorite mystery writers. (The other two are Dame Agatha and Dorothy Sayers.) I think he’s the best American mystery writer, creator of that dynamic duo, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Nero is a 300+ pound genius, and Archie is his legman. Nero is a great detective, but he needs Archie to run errands since The Big Man seldom leaves his brownstone in New York City. The thirty-one Nero Wolfe novels and the multiple short stories are just pure fun–no socially redeeming value at all. If you’ve never read any of these books, I’d suggest you start with Prisoner’s Base or The Mother Hunt, a couple of my favorites.
I had first read “A Modest Proposal” in a Norton anthology where there was NO reference to it being satire. Considering the fact that most public school students are taught that the author’s intention is not what is important, the reader’s interpretation is all that matters, satire becomes quite dangerous.
Wow…Lewis, L’Engle and Alcott all on the same day. I think I’ll have to make it a special occasion next year! Two of my prized possessions are recordings of Lewis reading The Four Loves (actually, the radio addresses on which the book is based) and L’Engle reading A Wrinkle in Time.