Status Updates From A Reader's Book of Days: Tr...

August 4

BORN: 1961 Barack Obama (Dreams from My Father), Honolulu
1965 Dennis Lehane (A Drink Before the War, Mystic River), Boston

DIED: 1875 Hans Christian Anderson
("Thumbelina,""The Ugly Duckling"), 70, Copenhagen
2003 James Welch (Fool's Crow, Winter in the Blood), 62, Missoula, Mont.

August 3

BORN: 1920 P.D. James (Death in Holy Orders, The Children of Men), Osford, England
1943 Steven Millhauser (Martin Drestle, Edwin Mullhouse), New York City

DIED: 1924 Joseph Conrad (Nostromo, Victory), 66, Bishopsbourne, England
2008 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago), 89, Moscow

August 2

BORN: 1924 James Baldwin (Notes of a Native Son, Giovanni's Room), New York City
1942 Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits), Lima, Peru

DIED: 1988 Raymond Carver (Cathedral, Fires), 50, Port Angleles, Wash.
1997 William S. Burroughs (The Soft Machine), 83, Lawrence, Kans.

BORN: 1815 Richard Henry Dana (Two Years Before the Mast), Cambridge, Mass.
1819 Herman. Melville (Type, Moby-Dick), New York City

DIED: 1743 Richard Savage (The Bastard, The Wanderer), c.46, Bristol, England
1963 Theodore Roethke (The Lost Son, The Waking), 55, Bainbridge Island, Wash.

July 31

BORN: 1919 Primo Levi (If This Is A Man, The Truce), Turin, Italy
1965 J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), Yate England

DIED: 1784 Denis Diderot (Jacques the Fatalist, Rameau's Nephew), 70, Paris
2000 William Maxwell (So Long, See You Tomorrow), 91, New York City

July 30

BORN: 1818 Emily Brontë (Withering Heights), Thornton, England
1924 William Gass (Omene=setter's Luck, The Tunnel), Fargo, N.D.

DIED: 1992 Joe Schuster (Superman), 78, Los Angeles
2012 Maeve Binchy (Circle of Friends, Tara Road), 72, Dublin

July 29

BORN: 1865 Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America), Paris
1965 Chang-Rae Ledd (A gesture Life, Native Speaker), Seoul, South Korea

DIED: 1833 William Wilberforce (A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade), 73, London
1979 Herbert Marcuse (One-Dimensional Man), 81, Strasberg, Germany

July 28
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BORN: 1866 Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit), London
1959 William T. Vollmann (Europe Central, Imperial), Los Angeles
DIED: 1995 Don Carpenter (Hard Rain Falling, Turnaround), 64, Mill Valley, Calif.
1996 Roger Tory Peterson (Field Guide to the Birds of North America), 87, Old Lyme, Conn.

July 27

BORN; 1916 Elizabeth Hardwick (Sleepless Nights), Lexington, Ky.
1939 William Eggleston (William Eggleston's Guide), Memphis, Tenn.

DIED: 1946 Gertrude Stein (The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas), 72, Neuilly-sun-Seine, France
1948 Susan Glaspell (Fidelity, A Jury of Her Peers), 72, Provincetown, Mass.

July 26

BIRTH: 1856 George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman, Major Barbara), Dublin
1894 Also Huxley (Brave New World, Crome Yellow), Godalming, England

DIED: 1934 Winsor McCay (Little Memo in Slumberland), c. 64, Brooklyn
1957 Giuseppe di Lampedusa (The Leopard(, 60, Rome

July 25

BORN: 1902 Eric Hoffner (The True Believer, The Passionate State of Mind), New York City
1905 Elias Canetti (Auto-da-Fé, Crowds and Power), Ruse, Bulgaria

DIED: 1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Kubla Khan), 61, Highgate, England
1966 Frank O'Hara (Meditations in an Emergency), 40, Fire Island, N.Y.

July 24

BORN: 1802 Alexandre Dumas père (The Three Musketeers), Villers-Cotterêts, France
1916 John D. MacDonald (The Deep Blue Good-by), Sharon, Pa.

DIED: 1969 Witold Gombrowicz (Fendydarke, Trans-Atlantyk), 64, Vence, France
1991 Isaac Bashevis Singer (Enemies, a Love Story, The sister), 91, Surfside, Fla.

July 23

BORN: 1888 Raymond chandler (The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely), Chicago
1997 Elspeth Huxley (The Flame Trees of Thick, Red Strangers), London

DIED: 2002 Chaim Potok (The Chosen, My Name Is Asher Lev), 73, Merion, Pa.
2009 E. Lynn Harris (Invisible Life, Jus as I Am), 54, Los Angeles

July 22

BORN: 1936 Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues), Blowin Rock, N.C.
1948 S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders: That Was Then, This Is Now), Tulsa, Okla.

DIED: 1990 Mnuwl Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman), 57, Cuernavaca, Mexico
1996 Jessica Mitford (Hons and Rebels), 78, Oakland, Calif.

July 21

BORN: 1899 Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms), Oak Park, Ill.
1899 Hart Crane (The Bridge, White Buildings), Garrettsville, Ohio
1966 Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith), Neyland Wales

DIED: 1796 Robert Burns ("A Red Red Rose," "To a Louse", 37, Dumbries, Scotland
1938 Owen Wister (The Virginian, Roosevelt), 78, Saunderstown, R.I.

July 20

BORN: 1924 Thomas Berger (Little Big Man, Neighbors, TheFeud), Cincinnati
1933 Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian, The Road), Providence. R.I.

DIED: 1912 Andrew Lang (The Blue Fairy Book), 63, Banchory, Scotland
1945 Paul Valéry (La Jeune Parque, Monsieur Teste), 73, Paris

July 19

BORN: 1893 Vladimir Mayakovsky (The Bedbug), Baghdati, Russian Empire
1932 Jayne Anne Phillips (Machine Dreams, Lark and Termite), Buckhannon, W.Va.

DIED: 2005 Edward Bunker (Education of a Felon, Dog Eat Dog), 71 Burbank, Calif,
2009 Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes, Teacher Man), 78, New York City

July 18

BORN: 1937 Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), Louisville, Ky.
1969 Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love; The Last American Man), Waterbury, Conn.

DIED: 1817 Jane Austen (Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion), 41, Winchester, England
1899 Horatio Alger Jr. (Ragged Dick, Luck and Pluck), 67, Natick, Mass.

July 17

BORN: 1902 Christina Stead (The Man Who Loved Children), Rockdale, Australia
1951 Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down, Guests of the Ayatollah), St Louis

DIED: 1790 Adam Smith (The Wealth o Nations), 67, Edinburgh
2001 Katherine Graham (Personal History), 84, Boise, Idaho

July 16

BORN: 1920 Anatole Broyard (Intoxicated by My Illness, Kafka Was the Rage), New Orleans
1928 Anita Brookner (Hotel du Lac, Look at Me), London
DIED: 1995 May Sarton (Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing), 83, York, Maine
1995. Stephen Spender (World Within World, The Temple), 86, London

July 15

BORN: 1892 Walter Benjamin (Illuminations, The Arcades Project), Berlin
1949 Richard Russo (Empire Falls, Straight Man), Johnstown, N.Y.

DIED: 1999 Gina Berriault (Women in Their Bed, The Son) 73, Greenbrae, Calif.
2003 Roberto Bolaño (2666, By Night in Chile, Amulet), 50 Barcelona

July 14

BORN: 1916 Natalia Ginzburg (The City and the House), Palermo, Italy
1966 Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret), East Brunswick, N.J.

DIED: 1817 Germaine de Staël (Delphine; Corinne, or Italy), 51, Paris
1984 Ernest Tidyman (Shaft, Shaft's Big Score), 56, London

July 13

BORN: 1894 Isaac Babel (Red Cavalry, Odessa Tales), Odessa, Russian Empire
1934 Wole-Soyinka (Ake, Death and the King's Horseman), Alseokuta, Nigeria

DIED: 1946 Alfred Stieglitz (Camera Work), 82, New York City
1983 Gabrielle Roy (The Tin Flute, Street of Riches), 74, Quebec City

July 12

BORN: 1812 Henry David Thoreau (Walden, Civil Disobedience), Concord, Mass.
1904 Pablo Neruda (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), Parral, Chile

DIED: 1536 Erasmus (In Praise of Folly, On Civility in Children), 69, Basel, Switzerland
2010 Harvey Pekar (American Splendour). 70, Cleveland Heights, Ohio