Secret Lives of Great Authors

January 1, 2009
Adult/High School-Schnakenberg packages the lives and loves of 41 famous writers into a supermarket-tabloid parody. All rumors, idiosyncrasies, feuds, etc., are fodder for laughs or sarcastic jeers; no event is so tragic as to be exempt. Each biography starts with birth/death dates, nationality, astrological sign, major works, contemporaries and rivals, literary style, and words of wisdom. Because Emily Dickinson wrote her poems in iambic tetrameter, they can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." She may have been a closet lesbian, but was definitely a Sagittarius. J. R. R. Tolkien (Capricorn) was one of the original translators of the Old Testament Books of Jonah and Job of the Jerusalem Bible and also snored so loudly that he was relegated to the bathroom to sleep while his wife remained in the bedroom. Agatha Christie, a Virgo, had a disability called dysgraphia and had to dictate all of her writing. Also, both of her husbands cheated on her. Schnakenberg compares F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to P. Diddy and Lindsay Lohan as King and Queen of the celebrity party circuit, "astounding guests with their outrageous, drunken behavior." He cites Hemingway and Fitzgerald as the Oscar and Felix of America's Lost Generation. Thanks to modern headlines and reality TV, nothing here is particularly shocking, but the author does show that celebrity is celebrity no matter when it occurs. All readers will find at least a few "you have to hear this" tidbits."Dana Cobern-Kullman, Luther Burbank Middle School, Burbank, CA"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.