William Blake, born in London (1757)

James Agee (1909-55) was born in Knoxville, TN on November 27, 1909. Read Orrin's review of A Death in the Family (1957)(Grade: C)

Bruce Lee (Lee Yuen Kam)(1940-73) was born in San Francisco, CA on November 27, 1940. Brothers Judd recommends the excellent biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

Gerald Seymour (1941-) was born on November 25, 1941. Read Orrin's review ofArchangel (1982) (Grade: A+)

Harry Stein (1948-) was born in New York, NY on November 25, 1948. Read Orrin's reviews of How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace) (2000)(Grade: A-) and Hoopla (1983)(Grade: B+)

Carlo Collodi (1826-90) was born in Florence, Italy on November 24, 1826. Read Orrin's review of Pinocchio (1940)

William F. Buckley (1925-) was born in New York, NY on November 24, 1925. Read Orrin's review of The Unmaking of a Mayor (1966)(Grade: A+)

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) was born in Manchester, ENG on November 24, 1849. Read Orrin's review of her classic, The Secret Garden (1911)

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was born in Hillsborough (now Hillsboro), NH on November 23, 1804. Despite being a favorite son, even Granite Staters acknowledge that he was one of our worst presidents.

George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans](1819-1880) was born in Warwickshire, ENG on November 22, 1819. Read Orrin's review of Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861) (Grade: A)

Coleman Hawkins (1904-69) was born in St. Joseph, MO on November 21, 1904. Glenn Dryfoos (Brothers Judd's Jazz Expert) writes : Coleman Hawkins was the first, and perhaps greatest, tenor saxophonist. World famous by the early 30's, his 1939 recording of "Body and Soul" is universally considered to be one of the finest examples of musical improvisation ever recorded. Check out this recording on the Victor Jazz label.

On November 21, 1620, the Pilgrims aboard Mayflower landed at modern day Provincetown. The ship carried 102 passengers and had been at sea for 65 days. During their passage they crafted one of the seminal political documents in human history, The Mayflower Compact.

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) was born in Paris, FR on November 21, 1694. Brothers Judd recommends his great philosophical satire Candide (1759).

James A. Garfield (1831-81) was born in Orange, OH on November 19, 1831.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1926- ) was born in Duncan, OK on November 19, 1926. Read Orrin's review of the once again timely Dictatorships and Double Standards : Rationalism and Reason in Politics (1982)

President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 at the dedication ceremony for the national cemetery that had been built to hold some of the 45,000 casualties from that battle. Read about the battle in the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Killer Angels (1974)(Michael Shaara) (Grade: A+) or about the address in the Pulitzer Prize winner Lincoln at Gettysburg : The Words That Remade America (1992)(Garry Wills)

Margaret Atwood (1939-) was born in Ottawa, Canada on November 18, 1939. Read Orrin's review of The Handmaid's Tale (1986)(Grade: C+)

W. S. Gilbert (1836-1911) was born in London, ENG on November 18, 1836. Brothers Judd recommends the recent biopic Topsy Turvy (1999).

Jose Saramago, author of The Stone Raft (1986), was born November 16, 1922

Chinua Achebe (1930-) was born in Ogidi, Nigeria on November 16, 1930. Read Orrin's reviews of Things Fall Apart (1958) (Grade: A+) and No Longer at Ease (1960) (Grade: A)

William E. [Edmund] Barrett (1900-86) was born in New York, NY on November 16, 1900.Read Orrin's review of The Lillies of the Field (1962)

J. G. [James Graham] Ballard (1930-) was born in Shanghai, China on November 15, 1930. Read Orrin's review of Empire of the Sun (1984)

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) was born in Kirkwood, MO on November 15, 1887. In 1952 she won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her Collected Poems. She was famously a big baseball fan and particularly loved Christy Mathewson.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was born in Paris, FR on November 14, 1840.

P. J. O'Rourke (1947-) was born in Toledo, OH on November 14, 1947. Read Orrin's review of Parliament of Whores : A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government (1991) (Grade: A)

George V. Higgins (1939-99) was born in Brockton, MA on November 13, 1939. Read Orrin's review of The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1971)(Grade: A)

C. Vann Woodward (1908-) was born in Vanndale, AR on November 13, 1908. Read Orrin's review of The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955)(Grade: B)(#70 on the Modern Library Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century)

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 13, 1850. Read Orrin's review of Treasure Island (1881)

Tracy Kidder (1945-) was born in New York, NY on November 12, 1945. Read Orrin's review of House (1985) (Grade: B)

Roy Jenkins (1920-2003) was born in Abersychan, Wales on November 11, 1920. Read Orrin's review of Churchill: A Biography (2001)

Carlos Fuentes (1928-) was born in Mexico City, MX on November 11, 1928. Read Orrin's review of The Old Gringo (1985)(Grade: C+)

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., (1922-) was born in Indianapolis, IN on November 11, 1922. Read Orrin's review of Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)(Grade: C)

Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was born on November 11, 1821. Read Orrin's review of Crime and Punishment (1866) (Grade: C)

Howard Fast (1914-) was born on November 11, 1914. Read Orrin's review of Spartacus (1951)

John Phillips Marquand (1893-1960) was born in Wilmington, DE on November 10, 1893. Read Orrin's review of his Pulitzer Prize winner The Late George Apley: a Novel in the Form of a Memoir (1937)(Grade: B)

Martin Luther, born in Eisleben [ICE-lay-ben], Saxony (1483). He was 33 when, "for the purpose of eliciting truth," he tacked his 95 thesesóor propositionsóonto the door of Wittenberg's castle church (October 31, 1517).

Roland Emmerich, director of The Patriot (2000), was born in Stuttgart, Germany on November 10, 1955.

Ivan Turgenev (1818-83) was born in Oryel, Russia on November 9, 1818. Read Orrin's review ofFathers and Sons (1862)(Grade: A+)

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847-1912) was born in Dublin, IRE on November 8, 1847. Brothers Judd recommends his seminal horror masterpiece Dracula (1897)

Margaret Mitchell (1900-49) was born in Atlanta, GA on November 8, 1900. Brothers Judd recommends her mondo best seller Gone With the Wind (1936)

Albert Camus (1913-60) was born in Mondovi, Algeria on November 7, 1913. Read Orrin's review ofThe First Man (1995)(Grade: A+)