Robinson Crusoe is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719.  Written with a combination of epistolary, confessional, and didactic forms, the book follows the title character (born Robinson Kreutznaer) after he is cast away and spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.  The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.  Pedro Serrano is another real-life castaway whose story might have inspired the novel.  The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and that the book was a non-fiction travelogue.  Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre.  Some allege it is a contender for the first English novel.  Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe    

David Elliot Grann (born March 10, 1967) is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and author.  His first book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, was published by Doubleday in February 2009. After its first week of publication, it debuted on The New York Times bestseller list at #4 and later reached #1.  Grann's articles have been collected in several anthologies, including What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001, The Best American Crime Writing of 2004 and 2005, and The Best American Sports Writing of 2003 and 2006.  He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grann   

December 10, 2024  NEW YORK (AP) — Nikki Giovanni, the poet, author, educator and public speaker who rose from borrowing money to release her first book to decades as a literary celebrity sharing her blunt and conversational takes on everything from racism and love to space travel and mortality, has died.  She was 81.  Giovanni, subject of the prize-winning 2023 documentary “Going to Mars,” died Monday with her life-long partner, Virginia (Ginney) Fowler, by her side.  Author of more than 25 books, Giovanni was a born confessor and performer whom fans came to know well from her work, her readings and other live appearances and her years on the faculty of Virginia Tech among other schools. Poetry collections such as “Black Judgement” and “Black Feeling Black Talk” sold thousands of copies, led to invitations from “The Tonight Show” and other television programs and made her popular enough to fill a 3,000-seat concert hall at Lincoln Center for a celebration of her 30th birthday.  https://apnews.com/article/nikki-giovanni-obit-e2232d5a003442afb76f084fe7c1b4a3     

December 9, 2024  Kennedy Center Honors Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, The Apollo & More  Counterculture mingled with high arts culture at the 47th Kennedy Center Honors.  Shakedown Street wound its way to the nation’s capital on Sunday (Dec. 8) as counterculture mingled with high arts culture at the 47th Kennedy Center Honors, where legendary rockers the Grateful Dead; blues rock songstress and guitarist Bonnie Raitt; acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; and jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval were inducted.  In a first, the Honors this year inducted a venue, Harlem’s fabled The Apollo, in celebration of nine decades of the theater championing Black artists and culture.  Musical star power included Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Maggie Rogers, Dave Matthews, Queen Latifah, Leon Bridges, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Don Was, Sturgill Simpson, The War and Treaty, Jackson Browne, Trombone Shorty, Doug E. Fresh, Raye, Grace VanderWaal and Keb Mo.  https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/kennedy-center-honors-grateful-dead-bonnie-raitt-apollo-1235848089/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2884  December 11, 2024