2 writers

Two writers who meant a lot to me when I was growing up died recently; a few links to mark their passing.

Farley Mowat died at the age of 92. Here is a wonderful appreciation by Dorian Stuber. Both Never Cry Wolf and The Dog Who Wouldn't Be were very important to me (though as Dorian says in his post, the books of Gerald Durrell were probably more influential the long run - I too was a child who imagined a future as a sort of hybrid of Durrell and Jane Goodall, and spent untold hours cleaning out the cages of rabbits, guinea-pigs, snakes, lizards, etc. in the school science room!). Two things that have always stuck with me: the claim (possibly fabricated) that Mowat peed around the perimeter of his camp in order to mark it as his territory; and the wonderful cover for the edition of The Dog Who Wouldn't Be that lived at my grandparents' house in London.


Also: Mary Stewart dies age 97. Both the thrillers and the Merlin novels were among my absolute favorites when I was ten or eleven - I have read them all about a million times (again, they were on the shelf at my grandmother's house in London, I reread the whole set every two years when we visited).