In summer 1930, Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of the then-unknown Laura Ingalls Wilder, wrote in her diary:  "Working on my mothers [sic] story — stupidly, for will it come to anything?"  Wilder had just drafted a memoir about growing up in a pioneer family in the 1870s.  Lane, then an established author and journalist with many works of fiction and nonfiction to her name, had been encouraging her.  The crash of 1929 had wiped out the family's investments and Lane was eager to send something new to her agent.  Though his response to her mother's memoir was lukewarm, Lane persisted, and two years later, after rejections, revisions, a new agent, a new editor and a transformation of the memoir into fiction, Harper & Brothers published "Little House in the Big Woods" by Wilder.  It would be the first in a series of seven children's books based on "Pioneer Girl."  Wilder and the "Little House" books would go on to enduring, international fame; Lane would fade into obscurity.  The story of how this beloved series came to be has drawn great interest in recent years, as critics have debated Lane's role:  How much of the "Little House" books did she revise or even write herself?  Lane always insisted that she merely edited them; she didn't believe there was much prestige in "juveniles."  At the same time, her diaries and letters reveal an intense and entwined relationship, and writing mentorship, between daughter and mother.  "Pioneer Girl:  The Annotated Autobiography," painstakingly annotated by Pamela Smith Hill, author of the biography "Laura Ingalls Wilder:  A Writer's Life," publishes Wilder's original memoir for the first time, presenting a crucial addition to the world of Wilder lore and scholarship while continuing to raise questions about authorship.  Bich Minh Nguyen   http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-laura-ingalls-wilder-20141130-story.html

Brad Parks is the only author to have won the Shamus, Nero and Lefty Awards.  He received the Shamus (for best first private eye novel) and the Nero (for best American mystery) for his debut, FACES OF THE GONE, the first book in history to take both awards.  Parks is a graduate of Dartmouth College and spent a dozen years as a reporter for The Washington Post and The Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger.  http://www.bradparksbooks.com/author.php

Dec. 11, 2014  Australian prime minister causes literary prize uproar

by Carolyn Kellogg 

They call it the Prime Minister's Literary Award, so it makes sense that Australia's prime minister gets to have a say in it.  However, when Prime Minister Tony Abbott decided to have a hand in the final fiction decision this week, it caused an uproar.  NPR reports that the judges had unanimously selected "A World of Other People" by Steven Carroll to win the award, but Abbott interceded and added Man Booker Prize-winner "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" by Richard Flanagan.  The prize was given to both authors.  It was the first time in the prize's seven-year history that it has been split.  "These are the prime minister’s awards, they’re for him to give to whoever he likes," Australia's attorney general told the Guardian.  As winners, Flanagan and Carroll split the award money, each taking home $40,000.  Except Flanagan isn't keeping his.  Although as recently as his Man Booker win, Flanagan spoke of his own financial struggles, he announced he would donate his share of the winnings to Australia's Indigenous Literacy Foundation.  http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-australian-prime-minister-causes-literary-prize-uproar-20141211-story.html

Q.  Where does this famous quote come from? 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

A.  It is the fourth verse of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by ROBERT FROST  See the whole poem at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621

Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872) is noted as being one of the best landscape painters in the west, according to European curators and experts.  Being born a “free” slave in New York, from a Canadian slave owner, Robert S. Duncanson established himself as a master artist during a time in American history when men of color had no freedom or rights.  Robert S. Duncanson achieved unprecedented renown in the art world in the 19th century despite the adversity he faced as a freeborn “person of color”, earning national and international acclaim for his landscape paintings.  He pursued his artistic career during a time of tremendous racial prejudice and was one the first African American artists to appropriate the landscape as part of his cultural heritage and as an expression of his cultural identity.  Duncanson was a self trained artist and started his career as a apprentice working as a house painter (murals), portraiture, and landscape art in Cincinnati, Detroit, Montreal and London.  His formative years focused on portraits and murals from commissioned work.  After traveling up to New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Canada his focused changed more to that around the Hudson River School movement and Ohio River Valley.  See pictures and find a list of museums where paintings of Duncanson may be viewed at https://hudsonriverschoolartists.wordpress.com/the-hudson-river-school-artists/robert-s-duncanson-1821-1872/  See also http://arthistory.about.com/od/names_dd/a/duncanson_robert_s.htm

Nothing ever came easy to Harry Patterson, including writing.  Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he grew up in Leeds, England.  Entering the army at 17, he served as a corporal in Berlin at the height of the Cold War, while gathering research data that would serve him well in many books to come.  His first books was published in 1959, before graduation, for the princely sum of $150.  Other books, under other names, followed while he managed to hold down a full-time teaching position.  By any name; Martin Fallon, Hugh Marlow, Ken Graham, to name a few--sales were few and far between.  But after adopting the name of an uncle, Jack Higgins, in 1969 his writing career took a decided upturn.  In 1976, Higgins joined the roster of instant-millionaire writers then The Eagle Has Landed hit the best-sellers lists worldwide.  And was made into a movie, starring Michael Caine.  1999 marked Higgins' 40^th year as a published author and the publication of still another bestseller from Putnam , The White House Connection.  Writing under his own name, Harry Patterson , he also produced bestsellers, The Valhalla Exchange and To Catch A King.  Both novels, Storm Warning (Higgins) and The Valhalla Exchange (Patterson) appeared on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously.
Read interview with Jack Higgins at  http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/~gert/higgins/html/interview8.htmlat Find books and films of Jack Higgins (born in England, not Ireland, according to article) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Higgins

The winter solstice doesn't always occur on 21 December.  Sometimes it nudges into the early hours of 22 December, which will happen again next year.  The hour of day also varies.  It would seem logical that after the shortest day has elapsed the mornings would start getting lighter earlier, but this isn't what happens - the mornings continue darkening until early in the new year.  Meanwhile, those who thought that the winter solstice would mark the earliest sunset would also be wrong as the earliest sunset arrives a couple of weeks earlier.  In the southern hemisphere, it's exactly the opposite story.  In Sydney, Australia, for example, mornings will start getting darker from the middle of December, while the evenings will continue to get lighter until early January.  So what is behind this peculiarity, which appears to fly in the face of received wisdom about the solstice - surely the shortest day should experience the latest sunrise and earliest sunset?  Well, the primary reason behind it all is that a day - a solar day to be precise - is not always exactly 24 hours.  "In fact, it is 24 hours only four times a year, and never in December," explains astronomer Stephen Hurley, who runs a popular science blog called The Science Geek.  "It is at its shortest around 23 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds, in early September, and at its longest around 24 hours 30 seconds in December."  There are two reasons why the length of the solar day varies, the first being the fact that the axis of the Earth's rotation is tilted - 23.5 degrees from vertical - and second, the Earth's speed varies because it moves in an elliptical orbit around the sun, accelerating when it is closer to the star's gravitational pull and decelerating when it is further away.  The sun therefore in effect lags behind the clock for part of the year, then speeds ahead of it for another.  "As you can imagine, it would be complete chaos if our clocks and watches had to cope with days of different lengths," continues Hurley.  "So we use 24 hours, the average over the whole year, for all timekeeping purposes.  "So, as the solar days in December are on average 24 hours and 30 seconds, while our clocks and watches are still assuming that each day is exactly 24 hours, this causes the day to shift about 30 seconds later each day."  Read extensive article at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30549149

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1233  December 22, 2014  On this date in  1808, Ludwig van Beethoven conducted and performed in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano).  On this date in 1937, the Lincoln Tunnel opened to traffic in New York City.