Bookish birthdays for the week of October 17, 2021

Here are the literary birthdays to celebrate over the week of October 17, 2021.

Nathanael West (October 17, 1903): West is known for his satirical novels such as The Day of the Locust, widely believed to be the best novel written about Hollywood.

Arthur Miller (October 17, 1915): Miller gained early fame for his award-winning plays Death of a Salesman and The Crucible; he also wrote novels, short stories, and an autobiography.

Terry McMillan (October 18, 1951): McMillan is best known for her third novel, Waiting to Exhale, which became a smash hit (and movie) and also earned her a hefty contract to write another bestseller, How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

John Le Carré (October 19, 1931): Le Carré’s nearly-sixty-year writing career has yielded a number of beloved novels, including The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and The Constant Gardener.

Philip Pullman (October 19, 1946): Pullman has received numerous awards for the His Dark Materials fantasy series and was named to The Times’s list of the fifty greatest British authors since 1945. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772): Famous for his poems "Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria is also his era’s most significant work of general literary criticism.

Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929): Le Guin was a pioneer in sci-fi and fantasy, winning the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards multiple times; her best-known novels include the Earthsea series and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Doris Lessing (October 22, 1919): Lessing, best known for The Golden Notebook and her Children of Violence series, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.

Michael Crichton (October 23, 1942): Crichton has sold over 200 million books, propelled by such hits as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park (yes, the basis for the movie).

Birthdays sourced from Calendar of Literary Facts; biographical information sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica and author websites. Did we miss someone? Email and let us know!