Today

Today Hurricane Ike devastated Houston and I wish all of my Houston friends safety and Goodspeed.

It's the birthday of Sherwood Anderson, (books by this author) born in Camden, Ohio (1876). He's the author of Winesburg, Ohio.

It's the birthday of John Boynton (J.B.) Priestley, (books by this author) born in Bradford, England (1894). He was one of the great English men of letters of the 20th century. He wrote more than a hundred books of fiction and essays and drama.

The defining experience of his life was World War I. He served in the army. Most of his friends were killed. He believed that England was never the same afterward. He said, "I belong at heart to the pre-1914 North Country."

He never wrote fiction about the war. He thought it would be disrespectful. His favorite of his own novels was Bright Day, about his hometown before the war.

It's the birthday of Roald Dahl, (books by this author) born in Llandaff, South Wales (1916). He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with 11 chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like. Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.