2001 - Literature

Literature

Wikipedia goes online as a free collaborative encyclopedia with contributions from users who are cautioned to be politically neutral. Huntsville, Ala.-born Internet entrepreneur Jimmy (Donal) Wales, 35, and Bellevue, Wash.-born Ohio State philosophy lecturer Larry Sanger, 33, have founded the enterprise and will receive help from users worldwide to build the information source.

Nonfiction: Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Fairfax, Va.-born Equus magazine contributing editor Laura Hillenbrand, 34 (see sports, 1938); Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry by Michael Ignatieff; The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years by Haynes Johnson; War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam; Staying Tuned by veteran broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr, now 85, who still practices his craft brilliantly for National Public Radio; Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News by New York-born journalist Bernard Goldberg, 56, who worked for the network for 28 years, receives a pension from CBS, and claims that "conservatives" do not receive a fair shake from the mainstream media; Global Political Economy by Princeton economist Robert Gilpin, who questions claims that globalization is inevitable and will lead to the retreat of the nation-state, showing rather that the world was more globalized before World War I and that today's globalization actually represents the formation of trade blocs such as the European Union and NAFTA; The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester is about the 19th-century geologist William Smith; April 1865: The Month that Saved America by New Haven, Conn.-born political scientist Jay B. Winik, 44; Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in Boom-Time America by Barbara Ehrenreich, who has worked for nearly a year as a waitress, housemaid, and Wal-Mart clerk in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, respectively, to gain an understanding of how the working poor try to survive; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Middle Class and How They Got There by National Review editor David Brooks.

Historian Sir Richard W. Southern dies at his Oxford home February 6 at age 88; author-aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh at her Passumsic, Vt., home February 7 at age 94; journalist-author Rowland Evans Jr. at Washington, D.C., March 23, at age 79; elections analyst Richard M. Scammon of Alzheimer's disease at a Gaithersburg, Md., retirement community April 27 at age 85; historian J. C. Furnas at Stanton, N.J., June 3 at age 95; philosopher-educator Mortimer Adler at his San Mateo, Calif., home June 28 at age 98; historian A. G. Dickens at London July 31 at age 91; author Peter Maas at New York August 23 at age 72; historian Sir J. H. Plumb at Cambridge October 21 at age 90; author E. H. Gombrich at London November 3 at age 92.

Fiction: Half a Life by V. S. Naipaul (who wins the Nobel prize for literature); The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa; Adios Muchachos by Uruguayan-born University of Havana classics professor and novelist Daniel Chavarria, 68, who came to Cuba in 1969 and writes of prostitutes; Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald; Border Crossing by Pat Barker; The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen; Empire Falls by Richard Russo; The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (stories) by Alice Munro; Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler.

Science-fiction novelist Gordon R. Dickson dies of asthma complications at Minneapolis January 31 at age 77; suspense novelist Robert Ludlum of an apparent heart attack at Naples, Fla., March 12 at age 73; Douglas Adams of an apparent heart attack at Santa Barbara, Calif., May 11 at age 49; R. K. Narayan at his native Madras May 13 at age 94; Frank G. Slaughter at Jacksonville, Fla., May 17 at age 93; Mordecai Richler of kidney cancer at his native Montreal July 3 at age 70; short-story writer and novelist Eudora Welty outside her native Jackson, Miss., July 23 at age 92; science-fiction novelist Poul Anderson of cancer at his Orinda, Calif., home July 31 at age 74, having published more than 100 novels and collections; novelist Robert H. Rimmer dies at his Quincy, Mass., home August 1 at age 84; Dorothy Dunnett at Edinburgh November 9 at age 78; Ken Kesey of liver cancer at Eugene, Ore., November 10 at age 66; John Knowles at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., suburb November 29 at age 75; W. G. Sebald in an auto accident near his Norwalk home in East Anglia December 14 at age 57, having swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a truck.

Poetry: Electric Light by Seanus Heaney; Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins, who is named U.S. poet laureate; The Darkness and the Light by Anthony Hecht, now 78; The Beforelife by Franz Wright; The Seven Ages by Louise Glück, who will succeed Collins as poet laureate in October 2003.

Poet Gregory Corso dies of prostate cancer at Robbinsdale, Minn., January 17 at age 70; Elizabeth Jennings at Bampton, Oxfordshire October 26 at age 75.

Juvenile: The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, and The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket, whose first three books are published under the title A Series of Unfortunate Events, illustrations by Bret Helquist; The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo; Notes from a Liar and Her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko.

Author Elizabeth Yates dies at a Concord, N.H., hospice July 29 at age 95.