May the May Authorial Force Be With You

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Daphne du Maurier (Hans Wild/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images).

It’s May 31, so I think I’ll belatedly focus on fiction writers who were born this month!

Given that I read or reread three Daphne du Maurier novels (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and Frenchman’s Creek) during the past 31 days, I’ll start with that author. She was born on May 13, and lived from 1907 to 1989.

Now I’ll go chronologically by May birth date, listing only writers I’ve read at least something by:

May 1: Joseph Heller (1923-1999), who of course wrote the famous satirical antiwar novel Catch-22.

May 7: Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the renowned poet, novelist, playwright, painter, composer, etc.

May 8: Thomas Pynchon (1937-), the reclusive author of some pretty challenging postmodern fiction.

May 8: Peter Benchley (1940-2006). Jaws!

May 9: J.M. Barrie (1860-1937). Peter Pan!

May 9: Richard Adams (1920-2016). Watership Down!

May 11: Sheila Burnford (1918-1984). Author of the absorbing animal adventure The Incredible Journey.

May 11: Stanley Elkin (1930-1995). Author of satirical novels such as The Rabbi of Lud.

May 15: L. Frank Baum (1856-1919). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

May 15: Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940). Author of the fantastical The Master and Margarita.

May 17: Peter Hoeg (1957-). Smilla’s Sense of Snow, etc.

May 19: Nora Ephron (1941-2012). I haven’t read any of her books, but did watch several of the movies she wrote and/or directed — including When Harry Met Sally…

May 19: Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). The acclaimed A Raisin in the Sun playwright.

May 20: Honore de Balzac (1799-1850). The prolific author of compelling novels such as Old Goriot and Eugenie Grandet.

May 22: Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Sherlock Holmes!

May 23: Margaret Wise Brown (1910-1952). Writer of the Goodnight Moon classic many parents have read to their children.

May 24: Michael Chabon (1963-). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, etc.

May 25: W.P. Kinsella (1935-2016), whose books include the Shoeless Joe novel made into the movie Field of Dreams.

May 25: Jamaica Kincaid (1949-). Annie John, etc.

May 27: Herman Wouk (1915-2019). Wrote the riveting The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance, and the memorable Marjorie Morningstar.

May 27: Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961). Author of The Maltese Falcon novel starring iconic private eye Sam Spade.

May 27: Tony Hillerman (1925-2008). Best known for his mysteries featuring Native-American characters.

May 27: John Cheever (1912-1982). His “The Swimmer” short story remains amazing.

May 28: Walker Percy (1916-1990). Best known for his novel The Moviegoer and for helping John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces novel get published posthumously.

May 30: Colm Toibin (1955-). Author of the novels Brooklyn, The Master (a fictionalized take on Henry James), etc.

May 31: Walt Whitman (1819-1892). The highly influential poet.

Other May-born writers I didn’t mention? Any thoughts on the ones I did mention?

Misty the cat says: “I’d be taller than this tree if I puffed out my fur.”

My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂

I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — which criticizes the ending of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show (he lives in my town) — is here.

95 thoughts on “May the May Authorial Force Be With You”

  1. Oof! I am woefully behind in reading here on WP! Love this stunning list, Dave. Several things caught my eye but none more than the inclusion of Herman Wouk! How have I missed Marjorie Morningstar? I know nothing about this one…adding to my reading list! Thank you, dear friend for always inspiring me, reading-wise. Love it! 💝

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  2. Hi Dave!

    Thank you for your post. I didn’t realise so many noteable authors were born in May!

    And as usual Dave, I have come away feeling I need to read more! The books you have mentioned all sound fantastic!

    Also, when a film is based on a book it’s good to know the author’s name. For example Nora Ephron: ‘When Harry Met Sally’. I had no idea.

    Thanks again.

    Sharon 😊

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  4. Happy June, Dave!

    Great

    May 28, 1908 – 1964 – Ian Fleming of the famous James Bond series.

    I haven’t read any lately – perhaps because he hasn’t written any.

    Still as a kid in my early teens, I read all he wrote (12) but never read either of his 2 books of short James Bond stories. However, many of these have been expanded into movies.

    Misty… that tree is massive. That look in your eyes….. Are you planning a tree take down?

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    • Thank you, Resa! Great mention! I saw Ian Fleming’s name while researching the May-birth post, but have never read any of his Bond books. Did see a couple of Bond movies way back when. Ha — 😂 — hard for Fleming to write much after he passed away. 🙂

      Ha again — 😂 — Misty contemplating a tree takedown. 🙂 He’s more into attacking twigs, but has so far left Twiggy alone. Misty does often have a look of intense concentration when outside.

      Happy June to you, too!

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  6. A truly impressive list, dear Dave., especially considering you limited yourself to books you’d already read.

    Italian writer Giovannino Guareschi was born on May 1, 1908. He was a famous journalist, cartoonist, and comedian, best known for creating Don Camillo, a gruff parish priest, and his eternal rival Peppone, the communist mayor. Their comic clashes perfectly captured the political tensions of postwar Italy

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  7. An excellent list, Dave. Sadly I’m not up to speed on when authors were born, just interested in their authorial activities from cradle to grave! Thanks for sharing though. 😊

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  8. That’s an impressive list, Dave. Lovely May indeed, since you are there too, and twice (saying hi to Misty too).

    Okay, I have just one, but a lovely book. It’s called The Book of Lost Things. I really enjoyed it and the cover is gorgeous (trust me). The writer is from Dublin – John Connolly (31st May, born 1968).

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    • Thank you, Ada! Ha — Daphne du Maurier does look a bit annoyed, doesn’t she? 🙂 Perhaps not surprising; her great writing was often rather edgy. The “Jaws” novel is pretty good, but this might be one of the rare cases where the movie is a little better.

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  10. May has birthed some amazing authors! I especially enjoy the work of  Colm Toibin. I’ve read The Testament of Mary and the short story collection, Mothers and Sons. Excellent writing.

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  11. Great theme for a post Dave. And quite a bit of work I imagine too, especially given you kept to ones you’d read. I spied JM Barrie’s birthday in there and I can report I have visited his birthplace many years ago.

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    • Thank you, Shehanne! Wonderful that you visited J.M. Barrie’s birthplace! An online search tells me he was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland? The post did take a bit of work, but it was fun. 🙂 Misty the cat will be back for his every-two-month guest post this coming Sunday. 🙂

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      • Yes. Indeed he was. It says 20 miles away but we are not talking decent roads here in terms of the length of time that takes. We are talking the reason we gave up doing day trip hill walking in that area. However yes, we did visit it some years ago. And I once knew someone who was a descendant of a member of the Barrie family, there you go. He spelled his first name Barrie instead of Barry.

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        • Yes, Shehanne, 20 miles can be long or short depending on the difficulty or ease of traveling. 🙂 Reminds me of the urban version of that — my town is only about 15 miles from New York City, but it often takes at least an hour to get to a NYC destination because of traffic.

          Barrie is a more interesting spelling of Barry. 🙂

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          • Yeah… It was obviously cos it was a family surname but he had it as christian name because he fitted into that tree. Here it is not the amount of traffic that means it can take 90 mins to do 40 miles. It is the roads. eventually they go to C roads and passing places. In fact one hill we did once in the further reaches of one of the ‘nearby’ Angus glens it went to a cattle and then a dirt track before ending all together on a river bank. Needless to say we had the entire glen to ourselves.

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              • Aw xxx Dave. I remember it quite well cos we’d no sooner got up the hill we’d come to do when we found ourselves in a blizzard in the middle of nowhere basically with no-one else there and no phone signal, the real worry being that we would not manage to get the car back up onto the cow track at least. So you never saw anyone get back down a hill so fast.

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                  • Yeah we saw it coming up the glen and wondered what it was (and soon found out, ) it was May after all and a lovely sunny day,but we’ve been caught in them in June so…Then it hit. We were about 20 feet from the mountain top so we belted up and belted down/ As with blizzards at that time of year, we reckoned that once we got back down a good bit it would be untouched and we were right but we weren’t for taking any chances. It was too remote.

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                  • T’is very interesting. One must aye have ones wits-such as they are-about one…. We weren’t the only ones forced off that range that day cos a few weeks later when we were back in the area, we ended up chatting in the hotel to a group of climbers from down south who had come back specially to do it cos they had also been forced off and they were kind of mortified about it… There’s also the rain . . . .In these plaaces it turns everything to sludge and rivers flow like torrents beneath your feet….

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                    • Some Potter and Outlander fans do go a bit overboard. I love both series while never feeling the need to visit the sites featured in them. But visiting Scotland in general sounds appealing. 🙂

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                  • And you’d be more than welcome cos I know you’d also have respect for a place, for the history of that place before it ever appeared in a book or on a screen. And also it is not the fans who have priced the hill community out of that hotel, it is the hotel that did that. Gotta say the 1 star reviews on Tripadvisor make for the best reading cos they are charging top dollar for a dump of a place and folks from abroad don’t like that and I don’t blame them. The area is another matter which is why I gotta love the residents of our now go to place for barricading it. . . . ;.

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  12. Good to see that there are so many writers born in May, Dave! Most of all I would like to reread Catch-22 and those pilots by Joseph Heller, but “Hound of Baskervilles” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes to my mind. Thank you, Dave, for your always stimulating posts!

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  14. Lots of good books on this list–I’ve read at least one book by 13 of the authors. There’s a book there I’ve probably read over a hundred times, out loud: GOOD NIGHT MOON!

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  15. Great theme – and did you know that I have about six friends/family with May 27th bday? To see that three authors had that date here in your post had me smiling – the day is always a good one here

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  16. Dave, I was delighted to see Rabindranath Tagore on your list. He has held a special place in my heart ever since my father passed away. At that time, one of Tagore’s quotes came to me and brought great comfort:

    “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

    Those words helped me think about my father’s death in a different way. Rather than an ending, I felt that for him the dawn had come. Tagore had such a remarkable gift for expressing profound truths with both simplicity and beauty. Thank you for reminding me of him today.

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