I read with sadness this afternoon about the passing of the great Charles Osgood. I’m sure many people knew him from the two-plus decades he hosted the Sunday Morning program on CBS. But I recall him most fondly from his “Osgood Files” radio spots. During 8 years of commutes between Studio City and Santa Monica,…
At breakfast this morning I learned that E. O. Wilson had died. He was 92 years old. I was a fan of Wilson’s writing and in the last several years, read 4 of his books, including Letters to a Young Scientist, which I thought was fantastic, his memoir, Naturalist, a recent collection Tales from the…
In yesterday’s Washington Post, I read the obituary of Junior Mance, a jazz pianist who died on January 17 at the age of 92. I’d never heard of Mance, but his obituary was interesting (as obituaries often are) and it occurred to me that I could sample some of his music. I searched for Junior Mance on…
I learned this morning that science fiction Grandmaster James Gunn has died at age 97. His novel, The Listeners, set the standard for first contact stories. He created and ran the Center for the Study of Science Fiction in Lawrence, Kansas. His Road to Science Fiction anthologies offer an eclectic range of stories that chart…
I learned this afternoon that Carl Reiner died yesterday at age 98. I read several Reiner’s books over the years, including I Remember Me and I Just Remembered. The Dick Van Dyke Show, which Reiner created, was one of my favorite TV shows, despite its originally airing a decade before I was born. The episode…
I read in the Washington Post this morning that Jim Bouton had died at age 80. He pitched for the Yankees in the 1960s, but was perhaps most famous for his groundbreaking book, Ball Four. It is a fantastic look inside baseball in the late 1960s. If you are a fan of the game and…
The science fiction world, and much of the world at large is weeping today because we lost a giant. I can’t recall when I first heard the name “Ray Bradbury” but in my limited memory, it seems as if I was born with the name, that there was never a time I didn’t know who…
I remember watching the show as a kid living in New Jersey. And doing poor impersonations of some of the characters. RIP Robert Hegyes. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS3WNt7yRU&w=400]
I first saw the news of Anne McCaffrey’s passing last night via a Rob Sawyer tweet and it kind of stunned me. I was never a big reader of Anne McCaffrey‘s, not because I didn’t like her work, but mostly because I hadn’t gotten around to reading the bulk of it. What I have read…
I suppose that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated–until today. It has been reported that J.D. Salinger has died at his home New Hampshire. He was 91 years old. I loved the voice in The Catcher In the Rye. The book itself is a triumph of American literature. I also loved Salinger’s cameo appearance…
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