Today is August 20, the birthday of H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). It’s also my mother-in-law’s birthday, but that’s just a coincidence, I’m sure. Nothing nefarious about that at all.

I’ve spent a lot of time in a car over the last few years, and I’ve listened to a number of audio books. One of those was the complete works of Lovecraft. It was quite a good listening experience. This particular audio book was produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. The production values are top notch. I’m partly through his collaborations, also produced byt he HPLHS. I took a break to listen to the March Upcountry series by  David Weber and Jonh Ringo (highly recommended.)

There are two other birthdays of note  today, as well.

The first is Arthur Porges (1915-2006). Orges was primarily a shosrt fiction writer. He was a short fiction writer whose career spanned sixty years, from 1950 to 2010. The volulme shown on the right was the first collection of his work, and appeared from Ash-Tree Press in 2002. It’s the only one availabe in ebook. There were four later collections (not from Ash-Tree) from 2009 to 2014.

Porges was a solid short story writer. No great classics, but a reliable talesmith.

The third birthday is the artist H. R. Von Dongen (1920-2010).His work tended to be characterized by peopole witih long, thin faces.  Here are a few examples of his cover art.