January 24th marks the birthday of authors E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edith Wharton.

E. T. A. Hoffmann was a German writer of fantasy and horror. His most popular and well-known work is probably The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which has been translated, reworked, and made into movies and ballets.

Hoffmann wrote many novellas. Among them are "Mademoiselle de Scudery", which is a tale of crime that takes place in 17th-century Paris, and "The Sandman", which is a horror story about the folklore character of the same name. Both can be found in the Penguin Classics collection of Hoffmann's stories.

Edith Wharton was an American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner (for The Age of Innocence). She wrote novels, short stories, poetry, and even some non-fiction travel and descriptive books, and was the friend of fellow author Henry James. Some of her works have been made into movies.

Many of Wharton's works are set in turn-of-the-century New England. Among these are The House of Mirth, which is the story of a woman who is caught up in shallow New York society life, Ethan Frome, which illustrates the unhappy marriage of a rural Massachusetts couple, and The Custom of the Country, which tells the satiric story of a spoiled New York heiress.

Ever grab a movie randomly and hope for the best? I do that a lot. One of the latest gems I’ve grabbed and thoroughly enjoyed is Off The Map, which is based on a play. It’s a fantastic film starring Sam Elliot, Joan Allen, J.K. Simmons and Jim True-Frost, with superb performances by all.

In the remote desert of New Mexico, 12 year old Bo lives with her mother and father. They have a modest income and live off the land and off the grid, with everything they need. They lead a simple, happy life until her dad is hit with a major depression and it starts to affect the family’s daily life. One sunny day an IRS agent shows up to audit the family, and after getting sucked into the wonder of the desert and the family’s bohemian lifestyle, he never leaves. His visit awakens in him the fact that “the possibilities in life are endless,” and it ends up changing his life and the family's life forever. Told in retrospect by an adult Bo, it’s a feel-good film, about humanity, family, and what’s important in life.

January 16th marks the birthday of authors Anthony Hecht, Susan Sontag, and Magdalen Nabb.

Anthony Hecht was an American poet. An award was established in his name the year after his death. He became a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1968 for his work The Hard Hours, as well as the 2004 National Medal of Arts winner, which was given posthumously.

Hecht's other collections include The Darkness and the Light, which uses translations of ancient, medieval, and modern poets, and The Transparent Man, which Library Journal said "delivers elegies, lyrics, and dramatic monologs with equal grace and wit".

Susan Sontag was an American novelist, screenwriter, director, playwright, essayist, and activist. Among her awards are the National Book Award for In America and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography.

Sontag's other works include the dramatic play Alice in Bed, the novel I, Etcetera, a collection of essays called AIDS and Its Metaphors, and the comedic film Zelig.

Magdalen Nabb was an English author of both adult and children's fiction. Her most popular works may be those of the Guarnaccia series, which center around the character Marshal Guarnaccia. The books of the series are set in Tuscany and usually center around crimes.

Nabb's children's books include The Enchanted Horse, whose royalties, as her website says, "go to the Brooke Hospital for Animals"; and the Josie Smith series.

January 9th marks the birthday of authors Judith Krantz, Brian Friel, and Wilbur A. Smith.

Judith Krantz is an American writer of romance novels. Her first novel, Scruples, was published in 1978. It was made into a TV mini-series in 1980, and then Krantz wrote its sequel, Scruples Two, in 1992.

Krantz also wrote The Mistral's Daughter, which, like Scruples, turned mini-series. In total, seven of her novels were made for TV. Her latest novel, from 1998, is The Jewels of Tessa Kent, was described by Publisher's Weekly as "a romance of motherhood in all its full if tarnished glory".

Brian Friel is an Irish writer, mostly known for his plays. His play Dancing at Lughnasa won the Tony for Best Play in 1992; it tells the story of five sisters living in poverty in Ireland. It was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep in 1998.

Friel also wrote the drama Molly Sweeney, which in two acts tells the story of a woman blind since birth who undergoes surgery to try to restore her sight. The play is told in only monologues, and was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.

Wilbur A. Smith is a novelist, born in Northern Rhodesia, and now living in London. He has written three series, and many standalone novels, including Elephant Song, which Publisher's Weekly has called "a fast-paced melodrama of greed and political corruption".

Smith's latest work is Assegai, a part of both his Courtney and Ballantyne series; it is set in pre-WWI Kenya, and is his 32nd novel set in Africa. He also has a book coming out next year, Those in Peril, which you can read about on his website.

Sometimes folks get really excited about watching holiday themed movies this time of year, while others cringe at the mere thought of them, and wish to throw all copies of It's a Wonderful Life out the window. I fall somewhere in between.

I watched Midnight Clear about a month ago, which was perfect. As the title suggests, it does involve Christmas, but I like to call it "Christmas lite," as it's not an in your face fa la la la la film. It is a movie, and it just happens to take place on Christmas. In the film, the lives of five individuals converge in the most meaningful way. A down and out gas station attendant, a recently fired homeless man, a woman with a brain damaged husband, a youth pastor, and a lonely senior citizen each find a spark from the same flame that brings hope. It's a heart warmer that makes you think deeper about how small things can make a big difference.

What a great film, and I haven’t said that in a while. Gangster’s Paradise is inspired by true events and features Lucky Kunene as an up-and-coming street player in crime riddled Johannesburg, South Africa. As a teen he starts out with simple smash and grabs, but things get tense, and he can’t get back to the life he once had. He eventually ends up a modern Robin Hood slumlord of sorts, trying to make better living conditions for poor residents, while at the same time making himself rich. Will Kunene be able to keep up the life? The story is well told, well acted, and is visually stunning.

The recently released film For Colored Girls is based on the 1975 Pulitzer-winning play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, long considered to be a landmark piece in African American literature.

Billed as "a theatrical celebration, in verse and prose, of being female and black, it incorporates the triumphs, joys, griefs, and losses of black women in America".

The original text is in the form for a "choreopoem" - consisting of a series of 20 poems. It is performed by a cast of seven women characters, each of whom is known only by a color. Written, directed and produced by Tyler Perry, the film features Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, among others.

Check out the movie reviews by New York Times and Variety.

826logoHungry yet? Oatmeal may be the perfect, comforting breakfast as we enter another Michigan winter, but I’d like to entice you to brave the chill on Monday, November 22 for the “Scifi Fantasy RomCom Epic Adventure” of a lifetime. Five Bowls of Oatmeal is a festival of one-act plays that are written by 8- to 12-year-old playwrights from 826Michigan, performed by U of M performing arts students, and yes, they all involve oatmeal. Five Bowls starts at 7:00 p.m. at the Mendelssohn Theater at University of Michigan. Tickets are $15 and may be purchased in advance from brownpapertickets.com.

October 23rd marks the birthday of authors Michael Crichton, Gordon Korman, and Augusten Burroughs.

Michael Crichton was an American author and screenwriter, probably most famous for Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain, both of which were novels turned into movies. Among his lesser known--but critically praised--works is A Case of Need, his debut and award-winning mystery novel.

Crichton's final work, published the year after his death, is Pirate Latitudes. As you might guess from the title, it's about a 17th-century Caribbean pirate trying to take a Spanish galleon.

Gordon Korman is a 47-year-old Canadian children's and young adult author. He won the Air Canada Award for promising authors in Canada when he was only 16. He also has many ALA recognitions for his young adult novels.

Korman has written many youth series, including the Everest, Island, and Dive series. He also wrote the second book in the 39 Clues series, One False Note.

Augusten Burroughs is an American writer, best known for his novel Running with Scissors. The story was intended by Burroughs to be a "memoir" of a family, which he later had to call a "book", since the family it was based on sued. The story was made into a film in 2006.

Burroughs' latest work was published last year. Called You Better Not Cry: Stories For Christmas, it's a set of short autobiographical stories relating to the holidays.

October 16th marks the birthday of authors Oscar Wilde, Eugene O'Neill, and Gunter Grass.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish novelist and playwright who was exiled to France after being convicted for being a gay man. You can read about this imprisonment in one of his poems, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Wilde's most famous works include the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and one of his plays, The Importance of Being Earnest, both of which have been made into films.

Eugene O'Neill was a Nobel-winning American playwright. Some of his plays won Pulitzer Prizes, including Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, and Strange Interlude. He also had a Swedish stage acting award named in his honor.

O'Neill's plays are often tragic and pessimistic. This can perhaps be seen the best in his play Long Day's Journey Into Night, which is a sort of biography of his family. The play was made into films in 1962 and 1987.

Günter Grass is a Nobel-winning German novelist. He is probably most well-known in the States for his first novel, The Tin Drum, which is the first in the Danzig Trilogy. The book was also made into a German language film.

The most recent of Grass's works to be translated into English, aside from his autobiography, is called Crabwalk. It describes the sinking of a German refugee ship in 1945 by a Soviet submarine. The ship, MV Wilhelm Gustloff, really existed, though Grass's characters are fictional.