The Places You Will Go

RIP: Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007)

Madeleine L'Engle died at age 88 on 6th September 2007.

She was best known for her children's science fiction classic A Wrinkle in Time.

Read The New York Times obituary.

Lloyd Alexander

30 January 1924 - 17 May 17 2007

Obituaries here and here, and posts about him from Read Roger here and here.

Maria Gripe (1923-2007)

Maria Gripe, Swedish children's book author, died yesterday, 5th April, 2007. She would have been 84 on 25th July. Her husband, Harald Gripe, the illustrator, died in 1992. She leaves behind a daughter, Camilla,who is also a children's author, although her books are not translated into English.

The Glassblower's Children, written by Gripe and illustrated by Harald Gripe is featured in Illustrated Monday, 2nd April 2007.

Gripe's books translated into English are:

• Hugo and Josephine (Hugo och Josefin)
• Hugo (Hugo)
• Josephine (Josefin)
• In the Time of the Bells (I klockornas tid)
• The Glassblower's Children (Glasblåsarns barn)
• Pappa Pellerin's Daughter (Pappa Pellerins dotter)
• The Night Daddy (Nattpappan)
• Julia's House (Julias hus och nattpappan)
• Elvis and his Secret (Elvis Karlsson)
• Elvis and his Friends (Elvis! Elvis!)
• The Land Beyond (Landet utanför)
• The Green Coat (...ellen, dellen...)
• Agnes Cecilia (Agnes Cecilia)

Philippa Pearce 1920-2006

I've been so caught up with my own problems that I missed the fact that Philippa Pearce died, following a stroke, on Thursday, 28th December 2006.

Read her obituary in The Independent.

Muriel Spark 1918-2006

Mureil Spark, writer of novels like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Snobs and Memento Mori, died on 13th April in a hospital in Florence. She was 88 years old.

Read obituaries in ...

The Guardian Unlimited

The Independent

Here's a tribute to Spark, by David Lodge and at the end of the page you will find other Muriel Sprak links.

Also, if you are a fan you should definitely listen to Muriel Spark discussing The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on BBC 4's Bookclub. (The link is halfway down the page.) Even if you aren't a fan, you will want to read her books after you've heard her speak!

Jan Mark 1943-2006

I'm not familiar with her books, but I'm really curious now that I've read her obituary in the The Guardian Unlimited.

Saul Bellow

R.I.P.
Saul Bellow
Nobel laureate
1915-2005.

Read about the author and his work here.

Read his obituaries here and here.

Obituary: Humphrey Carpenter

Celebrated biographer Humphrey Carpenter died on January 4. He was the author of critically-acclaimed books about W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Benjamin Britten, Dennis Potter, Spike Milligan the Brideshead generation and, most famously, J. R. R. Tolkien and The Inklings (the Oxford literary group that Tolkien and C. S. Lewis belonged to).

Read more about Carpenter in The Guardian and The Telegraph.

Bye, Bye, Paula ...

Paula Danziger, author of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? and many more books, died on 8 July 2004.

Read her obituary here.

Ruth Heller Dies at 81

Illustrator Ruth Heller died on Thursday, 1 July, 2004, of cancer. She was 81. Heller illustrated over 20 children's books and also designed an extremely successful series of colouring books that featured intricate shapes like snowflakes, geometric designs, optical illusions and seashells.

Read Heller's obituary here.