Today is the 114th birthday of one of the most remarkable, surprising, and under-appreciated writers you haven’t (yet) read. Though named in a public poll as one of the “best British writers since 1945”, Mervyn Peake hasn’t got the same credit in the US–and perhaps that’s because it’s so difficult to categorize both the man and … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Mervyn Peake!
Today, May 22, is the 156th birthday of Scottish physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle. Though he is now revered as the creator of “the world’s first consulting detective”, the one and only Sherlock Holmes, Doyle himself would have wanted you to know so much more about him. For instance, he was a historian, publishing an … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!
January is a wonderful month for birthdays, and sometimes it’s tricky to make sure we talk about all the things about which a Library’s Official Blog should talk. So it is with profuse apologies to the great Alan Alexander Milne that we offer him a belated happy birthday the day after what would have been his … Continue reading Happy (Belated) Birthday, A.A. Milne!
I usually have a plan for my Wednesdays @ West posts, but often times something intervenes that convinces me that it’s important to change that plan. For example, last month one of my days to post coincided with Pearl Harbor Day. Free For All couldn’t ignore such a historic day, so I scrapped my original … Continue reading Wednesdays @ West: Happy Winnie-the-Pooh Day
Today, we bring you a blast from our past: a post that ran on this day in 2015, celebrating the birthday of Pac-Man, and offering you some books to read to celebrate! We hope you enjoy! Though there appears to be a bit of debate on the actual birthday of the classic video game, Pac-Man … Continue reading Eat all the food and avoid the ghosts….A Pac-Man themed If/Then
And a very happy birthday to Vietnamese poet, Tản Đà! Nguyễn Khắc Hiếu (who used the pen name Tản Đà), was born on this day in 1889 in what is now Khe Thuong, close to Hanoi. His father was Mandarin, Chinese, and, as a result, Tản Đà learned to speak and read Chinese, which provided him the opportunity to read … Continue reading Five Book Friday!
And a very happy birthday to Turkish novelist, poet, and playwright Murathan Mungan! Mungan, who was born this day in 1955, to an Arab father and a Bosnian mother, is one of Turkey’s most respected and well-known writers, as well as being a champion of LGBT rights in Turkey. His works deal with topics such as … Continue reading Five Book Friday!