Judi’s Reviews > A Reader's Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year > Status Update
Judi
is on page 40 of 448
February 1
1963 Among the many unintended consequences of the 114-day New York newspaper strike—new magazine careers for Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, slow sales at florists without obituaries to announce the dead—was the realization of five editors and writers, Robert Silvers, Barbara and Jason Epstein, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Robert Lowell, that with publishers starved to promote their books it was the perfect time...
— Mar 15, 2026 05:14AM
1963 Among the many unintended consequences of the 114-day New York newspaper strike—new magazine careers for Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, slow sales at florists without obituaries to announce the dead—was the realization of five editors and writers, Robert Silvers, Barbara and Jason Epstein, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Robert Lowell, that with publishers starved to promote their books it was the perfect time...
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Judi
is on page 119 of 448
April 14
1865 ... as a stepbrother and -sister engaged to be married, Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris, the Lincolns' guests in their box at Ford's Theatre, were bloodied bystanders at the assassination and were never the same afterward, Henry in particular. Stabbed nearly to death by the fleeing Booth, he slowly went mad and eighteen years later staged a bizarre reenactment of the tragedy with his wife as victim.
— Apr 21, 2026 04:23PM
1865 ... as a stepbrother and -sister engaged to be married, Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris, the Lincolns' guests in their box at Ford's Theatre, were bloodied bystanders at the assassination and were never the same afterward, Henry in particular. Stabbed nearly to death by the fleeing Booth, he slowly went mad and eighteen years later staged a bizarre reenactment of the tragedy with his wife as victim.
Judi
is on page 118 of 448
April 13
1924 ... the frist "Chick tract" in a series that now numbers in the hundreds, with over half a billion "soul winning" copies in print. Tiny, vivid comic books preaching hellfire for sinners and nonbelivers, especially for the Vatican's minions of Satan, Chick tracts can traditionally be found piled up at bus stations and in the collections of hipsters transfixed by the vigour of the hate they contain.
— Apr 21, 2026 08:45AM
1924 ... the frist "Chick tract" in a series that now numbers in the hundreds, with over half a billion "soul winning" copies in print. Tiny, vivid comic books preaching hellfire for sinners and nonbelivers, especially for the Vatican's minions of Satan, Chick tracts can traditionally be found piled up at bus stations and in the collections of hipsters transfixed by the vigour of the hate they contain.
Judi
is on page 117 of 448
April 12
1850 And reading Emma in 1850 didn't change her mind: "Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands and feet," she explained on this day, "but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores." She added, "If this is heresy—I cannot help it."
— Apr 21, 2026 06:48AM
1850 And reading Emma in 1850 didn't change her mind: "Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands and feet," she explained on this day, "but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores." She added, "If this is heresy—I cannot help it."
Judi
is on page 116 of 448
April 11
1819 "among them nightingales dreams, mermaids and sea monsters. "I heard his voice as he came towards me—I heard it as he moved away—I heard it all the interval." Coleridge, meanwhile, was so busy talking he hardly noticed this "loose slack, not well-dressed youth," but later he would claim to have felt "death in the hand" of the young poet, who was was felled by tuberculosis less than two years later.
— Apr 21, 2026 06:15AM
1819 "among them nightingales dreams, mermaids and sea monsters. "I heard his voice as he came towards me—I heard it as he moved away—I heard it all the interval." Coleridge, meanwhile, was so busy talking he hardly noticed this "loose slack, not well-dressed youth," but later he would claim to have felt "death in the hand" of the young poet, who was was felled by tuberculosis less than two years later.
Judi
is on page 115 of 448
April 10
1925 Despite his last-minute requests to change its "rather bad than good" title to "Trimalchio in West Egg," "Gold-Hatted Gatsby," or "Under the Red White and Blue," F. Scott Fitzgerald's third novel was published on this day by Scribner's as The Great Gatsby. Ten days later his editor, Maxwell Perkins, cabled Fitzgerald in Paris, "Sales situation doubtful excellent reviews:; even some admiring ...
— Apr 20, 2026 06:05PM
1925 Despite his last-minute requests to change its "rather bad than good" title to "Trimalchio in West Egg," "Gold-Hatted Gatsby," or "Under the Red White and Blue," F. Scott Fitzgerald's third novel was published on this day by Scribner's as The Great Gatsby. Ten days later his editor, Maxwell Perkins, cabled Fitzgerald in Paris, "Sales situation doubtful excellent reviews:; even some admiring ...
Judi
is on page 114 of 448
A[ril 9
1971 It's a one-sided love affair. On one side, Miss Helen Sweetstory, author of The Six Bunny-Wunnies and Their Pony Cart, The Six Bunny-Wunnies Go to Long Beach, and son on, and on the other side Snoopy, aspirating author of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" and Miss Sweetstories biggest fan, who decide on this day to write his beloved a fan letter He sends mash notes and she replies with form letters, ...
— Apr 20, 2026 10:50AM
1971 It's a one-sided love affair. On one side, Miss Helen Sweetstory, author of The Six Bunny-Wunnies and Their Pony Cart, The Six Bunny-Wunnies Go to Long Beach, and son on, and on the other side Snoopy, aspirating author of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" and Miss Sweetstories biggest fan, who decide on this day to write his beloved a fan letter He sends mash notes and she replies with form letters, ...
Judi
is on page 113 of 448
April 8
1928 "Never you mind," Dilsey tells her daughter, who is ashamed of her mother's open weeping as they walk from church on Easter Sunday. "I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de ending." For "April 8, 1928," the final section of The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner stepped back from the voices of the three Compton brothers who had told the tale of their family's decline to that point. He gave the story ...
— Apr 20, 2026 05:44AM
1928 "Never you mind," Dilsey tells her daughter, who is ashamed of her mother's open weeping as they walk from church on Easter Sunday. "I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de ending." For "April 8, 1928," the final section of The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner stepped back from the voices of the three Compton brothers who had told the tale of their family's decline to that point. He gave the story ...
Judi
is on page 112 of 448
April 7
1935 While John Dos Passos filmed the proceedings, Ernest Hemingway shot himself through both legs when a bullet ricocheted that was meant to kill a shark they had hooked onboard,
— Apr 19, 2026 04:28PM
1935 While John Dos Passos filmed the proceedings, Ernest Hemingway shot himself through both legs when a bullet ricocheted that was meant to kill a shark they had hooked onboard,
Judi
is on page 111 of 448
April 6
1934 M.F.K. Fisher, having "settled at a steady pacer of about fifteen pages at a time," read Ulysses on the beach at Laguna, occasionally turning herself "neatly to brown on both sides in the sun." Later, she made a chocolate cake.
— Apr 19, 2026 07:38AM
1934 M.F.K. Fisher, having "settled at a steady pacer of about fifteen pages at a time," read Ulysses on the beach at Laguna, occasionally turning herself "neatly to brown on both sides in the sun." Later, she made a chocolate cake.
Judi
is on page 110 of 448
April 5
1936 By the time of the elaborate Founders's Day festivities at the Tuskegee Institute, there years after he arrived from Oklahoma City as an eager and optimistic music major, Ralph Ellison had soured on the college and turned his interests to literature, so he listened to the language of the featured speaker with a sceptical but attentive ear. The speaker was Dr. Emmett J. Scott, the longtime right-hand ...
— Apr 19, 2026 07:09AM
1936 By the time of the elaborate Founders's Day festivities at the Tuskegee Institute, there years after he arrived from Oklahoma City as an eager and optimistic music major, Ralph Ellison had soured on the college and turned his interests to literature, so he listened to the language of the featured speaker with a sceptical but attentive ear. The speaker was Dr. Emmett J. Scott, the longtime right-hand ...
