Author: John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. He studied marine biology at Stanford University but never earned his degree and started working instead. After a few years, he moved to New York City to try to write as a freelancer, but eventually returned to California where he wrote his first widely successful novel, Tortilla Flat . More success came with his following novels and short stories and he won a Nobel Prize in 1962. Steinbeck died in New York City

Author: Anne Bronte was the youngest of the Bronte children and published well-known works such as Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as well as poetry. Anne was especially close to Emily, her older and the middle Bronte sister, as a child. She worked for a time as a governess which inspired this, her first novel. Emily and their brother Patrick Branwell died the year before Anne and Charlotte passed six years later. The Bronte children had no descendants. Three wor

Author: Julie Andrews is a successful actress and singer born in Walton on Thames in 1935. Julie grew up mostly in the English countryside with regular visits into London for vocal and dance lessons. She started her career performing with her mother and step father across England in vaudeville performances. She had several successes in plays and on Broadway, namely as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady , and was approached by Walt Disney to star as Mary Poppins which launched he

The hottest and most coveted literary award right next to The Pulitzer Prize. I learned to dedicate any spare time to reading this year. Even if I was only able to read 5 pages, I took advantage of it and in return found myself more willing to sit at home and read instead of watch TV. I appreciated some classics along with other books published within the last few years. Stats! Pages read: 5,385 Longest book: A House for Mr. Biswas , 564 Oldest book: Frankenstein , 1818 Most

This is hard for me to write for a lot of reasons: reasons that have made it difficult for me to write anything about my mom since she died, no matter how hard or how many times I’ve tried, reasons I could mention, but I won’t because that’s not what this is about. This is about missing my mom. I miss the way I could cry to her. I never had to have a reason to bawl in front of my mom. She always asked what was wrong, but a sufficient answer could have been, “I don’t know,” wh