Today, January 3, is the birthday of J. R. R. Tolkien (b. 1892).  A month or so ago, a minor writer of short stories pulled the ol’ drum-up-publicity-for-my-book-launch-by-attcking-someone-greater-than-me trick.

It worked, just not the way the guy that thought.  At least with me.  I’ve started rereading The Lord of the Rings.  Other than The Hobbit, I’ve never read deeply in Tolkien’s other works.  I’ve decided to change that and have gotten several volumes in The History of Middle-Earth.  I don’t know if I’ll blog about them, but I’m going to dip into them over the course of 2019.

Also, there are two birthdays from yesterday I didn’t mention because I was slightly distracted by my wife’s surgery.

Those were Charles Beaumont (b. Jan. 2, 1929) and Robert Nathan (b. Jan. 2, 1894).  Beaumont I’ve written about before.  A protege of Ray Bradbury, he wrote some great short stories and a number of well-regarded Twilight Zone scripts. I’ll try to read something of his in the next day or so.

Robert Nathan is best remembered for his short novel Portrait of Jenny.  It’s a love story set in the Great Depression about an artist who keeps meeting a girl in the park.  He meets her every few weeks, but each time she’s a few years older.  It’s not an adventure story, but it’s one of my favorite novels.  It’s definitely worth tracking down.