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Just Sayin'/LBC - LOST Book Club Authors
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Richard Adams
| Richard Adams (born 9 May 1920), Richard George Adams is an English novelist who is best known as the author of Watership Down. Adams was born in Newbury, Berkshire on 9 May 1920. He was educated at Horris Hill School from 1926 until 1933. He then went to Bradfield College from 1933 until 1938. In 1938 he went up to Worcester College, Oxford to read Modern History. In July 1940, shortly after the declaration of war between the UK and Germany, Adams was called up to join the British Army in which he served until 1946. He served in the Middle East and in India but saw no action against either the Germans or the Japanese.
In 1972, Rex Collings finally agreed to publish Adams' first work, Watership Down, after seven other publishers had turned the manuscript down. The book gained him international acclaim almost immediately, and established him as among the foremost English writers. In 1974, following publication of his second novel, Shardik, he left the Civil Service to become a full-time author. He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters, and they insisted he publish it as a book. It took two years to write. Over the next few years Watership Down sold over a million copies worldwide. Watership Down has become a modern classic and in 1972 was awarded both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for Children's Fiction. To date, Adams' best-known work has sold over 50 million copies worldwide. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975. |  Lostpedia Link
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Lewis Carroll
| Lewis Carroll (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand
From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both contributing heavily to the family magazine Mischmasch and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller magazines like the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the Whitby Gazette or the Oxonian Advertiser), but I do not despair of doing so some day," he wrote in July 1855. In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in The Train under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll." This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which the name Charles comes.
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky
| Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (11 November O.S. 30 October 1821 – 9 February O.S. 29 January 1881) was a Russian writer and essayist, notably known for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called the "best overture for existentialism ever written" by Walter Kaufmann. A prominent figure in world literature, Dostoyevsky is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. Dostoyevsky's mother was Russian. His paternal ancestors were from a village called Dostoyev in Belarus, in the Guberniya (province) of Minsk, not far from Pinsk; the stress on the family name was originally on the second syllable, matching that of the town (Dostóev), but in the nineteenth century was shifted to the third syllable. According to one account, Dostoyevsky's paternal ancestors were Polonized nobles (szlachta) of Ruthenian origin and went to war bearing Polish Radwan Coat of Arms. Dostoyevsky (Polish "Dostojewski") Radwan armorial bearings were drawn for the Dostoyevsky Museum in Moscow. Dostoyevsky was the second of six children born to Mikhail and Maria Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky's father Mikhail was a retired military surgeon and a violent alcoholic, who had practiced at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow. The hospital was located in one of the city's worst areas; local landmarks included a cemetery for criminals, a lunatic asylum, and an orphanage for abandoned infants. This urban landscape made a lasting impression on the young Dostoyevsky, whose interest in and compassion for the poor, oppressed and tormented was apparent. Though his parents forbade it, Dostoyevsky liked to wander out to the hospital garden, where the suffering patients sat to catch a glimpse of sun. The young Dostoyevsky loved to spend time with these patients and hear their stories. There are many stories of Dostoyevsky's father's despotic treatment of his children. After returning home from work, he would take a nap while his children, ordered to keep absolutely silent, stood by their slumbering father in shifts and swatted at any flies that came near his head. However, it is the opinion of Joseph Frank, a biographer of Dostoyevsky, that the father figure in The Brothers Karamazov is not based on Dostoyevsky's own father. Letters and personal accounts demonstrate that they had a fairly loving relationship.
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William Golding
| William Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993), Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. He was also awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book of the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth.
In September 1953, Golding sent a manuscript to Faber & Faber of London. Initially rejected by a reader there, the book was championed by Charles Monteith, then a new editor at the firm. He asked for various cuts in the text and the novel was published in September 1954 as Lord of the Flies. It was shortly followed by other novels, including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and Free Fall. Publishing success made it possible for Golding to resign his teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1961, and he spent that academic year in the United States as writer-in-residence at Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia. Having moved in 1958 from Salisbury to nearby Bowerchalke, he met his fellow villager and walking companion James Lovelock. The two discussed Lovelock's hypothesis that the living matter of the planet Earth functions like a single organism, and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after Gaia, the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology. In 1970, Golding was a candidate for the Chancellorship of the University of Kent at Canterbury, but lost to the politician and leader of the Liberal Party Jo Grimond. Golding won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1979, the Booker Prize in 1980, and in 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988. In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"
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Homer
| Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but most scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves seem to represent the culmination of many centuries of oral story-telling and a well-developed formulaic system of poetic composition. According to Martin West, "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."
The date of Homer's existence was controversial in antiquity and is no less so today. Herodotus said that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; but other ancient sources gave dates much closer to the supposed time of the Trojan War. The date of the Trojan War was given as 1194–1184 BC by Eratosthenes, who strove to establish a scientific chronology of events, and this date is gaining support in light of recent archaeological research. For modern scholarship, "the date of Homer" refers to the date of the poems' conception as much as to the lifetime of an individual. The scholarly consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from the extreme end of the 9th century BC or from the 8th, the Iliad being anterior to the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades," i.e. somewhat earlier than Hesiod, and that the Iliad is the oldest work of Western literature. Over the past few decades, some scholars have argued for a 7th-century date. Those who believe that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time, however, generally give a later date for the poems: according to Gregory Nagy, they became fixed texts in only the 6th century. Alfred Heubeck states that the formative influence of the works of Homer in shaping and influencing the whole development of Greek culture was recognized by many Greeks themselves, who considered him to be their instructor. |  Lostpedia Link
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Stephen King
| Stephen King (born September 21, 1947) Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. He is best known for novels such as Carrie, The Shining, It and the seven-novel series The Dark Tower, which King wrote over a period of 27 years, and contains many links to his other novels. As of 2010, King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories. He has collaborated with authors Peter Straub and Stewart O'Nan. Many of his novels and short stories have been adapted for film and television. King has stated that his favorite book-to-film adaptations are Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Mist. In 2007, Marvel Comics began publishing comic books based on King's Dark Tower series, followed by adaptations of The Stand in 2008 and The Talisman in 2009.
King and his wife, Tabitha, have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen. Tabitha, Joe and Owen are also published writers. In 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded King the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Ever since the Lost producers mentioned Stephen King as an influence during Season 1, there have been many speculative connections of King and his work to the world of Lost. These rumors have become a very controversial and puzzling aspect to the show after the introduction of the Others, specifically Ben, in Season 2. In October 2005, King signed with Marvel comics to write an expanded edition of his Dark Tower epic. His illustrator for this series is coincidentally named Jae Lee, the name of a flashback character in Lost. Stephen has made numerous references to Lost and gives it constant praise, further fueling speculation about King's influence on the show. He seems to be particularly fond of Hurley. The producers have mentioned The Stand as a major influence on the series in Disc 7 of Lost: The Complete First Season DVD set. Carlton Cuse has discussed the influence of King on their writing (Official Lost Podcast transcript/November 21, 2005): "But truthfully I think there's a lot of television and book influences as well and both of us have to give a shout out to Stephen King. Stephen King is so artful at blending science fiction or horror concepts with really compelling character stories, and that is so much a model for what we are doing on the show. I mean those books of his sustain for 800/1000 pages. Not because of the mythology but because the characters are so damn cool!" |         Lostpedia Links
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Madeleine L'Engle
| Madeleine L'Engle (November 29, 1918 – September 6, 2007) was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect her strong interest in modern science. Tesseracts, for example, are featured prominently in A Wrinkle in Time, mitochondrial DNA in A Wind in the Door, and organ regeneration in The Arm of the Starfish.
Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in New York City on November 29, 1918, and named after her great-grandmother, Madeleine L'Engle, otherwise known as Mado. Her mother, a pianist, was also named Madeleine. Her father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer, a critic, and a foreign correspondent who according to his daughter suffered lung damage from fat exposure to mustard gas during World War I. (In a 2004 New Yorker profile of the writer, relatives of L'Engle disputed the mustard gas story, claiming instead that Camp's illness was caused by alcoholism.) L'Engle attended Smith College from 1937 to 1941. After graduating cum laude from Smith[6] she moved to an apartment in New York City. In 1942 she met actor Hugh Franklin when she appeared in the play The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. L'Engle married Franklin on January 26, 1946, the year after the publication of her first novel, The Small Rain. (Later she wrote of their meeting and marriage, "We met in The Cherry Orchard and were married in The Joyous Season.") The couple's first daughter, Josephine, was born in 1947. The family moved to a 200-year-old farmhouse called Crosswicks in rural Connecticut in 1952. To replace Franklin's lost acting income, they purchased and operated a small general store, while L'Engle continued with her writing. Their son Bion was born that same year. Four years later, seven-year-old Maria, the daughter of family friends who had died, came to live with the Franklins, and they adopted her shortly thereafter. During this period, L'Engle also served as choir director of the local Congregational Church. In 1959 the family returned to New York City so that Hugh could resume his acting career. The move was immediately preceded by a ten-week cross-country camping trip, during which L'Engle first had the idea for her most famous novel, A Wrinkle in Time. L'Engle had completed the book by 1960, but more than two dozen publishers rejected the story before Farrar, Straus and Giroux finally published it in 1962. In 1960 the Franklins moved to an apartment in the Cleburne Building on West End Avenue; the apartment was sold by the estate for $4 million in 2008. From 1960 to 1966 (and again in 1989 and 1990), L'Engle taught at St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School in New York. In 1965 she became a volunteer librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, also in New York. She later served for many years as writer-in-residence at the Cathedral, generally spending her winters in New York and her summers at Crosswicks. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, L'Engle wrote dozens of books for children and adults. One of her books for adults, Two-Part Invention, was a memoir of her marriage, completed after her husband's death from cancer on September 26, 1986 |  Lostpedia Link
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Flann O'Brien
| Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was an Irish novelist and satirist, best known for his novels At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman written under the nom de plume Flann O'Brien. He also wrote the novel An Béal Bocht as well as many satirical columns in the Irish Times under the name Myles na gCopaleen. He was born in Strabane, County Tyrone.
Most of O'Nolan's writings were occasional pieces published in periodicals, which explains why his work has only recently come to enjoy the considered attention of literary scholars. O'Nolan was also notorious for his prolific use and creation of pseudonyms for much of his writing, including short stories, essays, and letters to editors, which has rendered a complete cataloging of his writings an almost impossible task—he allegedly would write letters to the Editor of the Irish Times complaining about his own articles published in that newspaper, for example in his regular Cruiskeen Lawn column, which gave rise to rampant speculation as to whether the author of a published letter existed or not. Not surprisingly, little of O'Nolan's pseudonymous activity has been verified. A key feature of O'Nolan's personal situation was his status as an Irish government civil servant, who, as a result of his father's relatively early death, was obliged to support ten siblings, including an older brother who was an unsuccessful writer. Given the desperate poverty of Ireland in the 1930s to 1960s, a job as a civil servant was considered prestigious, being both secure and pensionable with a reliable cash income in a largely agrarian economy. The Irish civil service has been, since the Irish Civil War, fairly strictly apolitical: Civil Service Regulations and the service’s internal culture generally prohibit Civil Servants above the level of clerical officer from publicly expressing political views. As a practical matter, this meant that writing in newspapers on current events was, during O'Nolan's career, generally prohibited without departmental permission on an article-by-article, publication-by-publication basis. This fact alone contributed to O'Nolan's use of pseudonyms, though he had started to create character-authors even in his pre-civil service writings. In reality, that O'Nolan was Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen was an open secret, largely disregarded by his colleagues, who found his writing very entertaining; this was a function of the makeup of the civil service, which recruited leading graduates by competitive examination—it was an erudite and relatively liberal body in the Ireland of the 1930s to 1970s. Nonetheless, had O'Nolan forced the issue, by using one of his known pseudonyms or his own name for an article that seriously upset politicians, consequences would likely have followed—hence the acute pseudonym problem in attributing his work today. |  Lostpedia Link
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Flannery O'Connor
| Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.
Regarding her emphasis of the grotesque, O'Connor said: "anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic." Her texts usually take place in the South and revolve around morally flawed characters, while the issue of race often appears in the background. One of her trademarks is foreshadowing, giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens. Most of her works feature disturbing elements, though she did not like to be characterized as cynical. "I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic," she writes. "The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror." |  Lostpedia Link
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Ayn Rand
| Ayn Rand (February 2/O.S. January 20, 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. She first achieved fame in 1943 with her novel The Fountainhead, which in 1957 was followed by her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged.
Rand's political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government. She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism, including fascism, communism, socialism, and the welfare state, and promoted ethical egoism while rejecting the ethic of altruism. She considered reason to be the only means of acquiring knowledge and the most important aspect of her philosophy, stating, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."
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John Steinbeck
| John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr..(February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Steinbeck, was born in Salinas, California. He was of German and Irish descent. Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, had shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Germany, is still today named "Großsteinbeck". His father, John Steinbeck Sr., served as Monterey County Treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton, a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion of reading and writing. Steinbeck lived in a small rural town that was essentially a frontier settlement, set amid some of the world's most fertile land. He spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels ranch. He became aware of the harsher aspects of migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which was material expressed in such works as Of Mice and Men. He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms. |   Lostpedia Links
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