Welcome to the Book Nook! The weekly thread for all book nerds on The Avocado. This is the place to talk about books you’re currently reading, discuss genres, ask for recommendations, and post serious literary criticism.

This week’s prompt: What are your thoughts on autobiographies? If you’re a fan, what are some of the best (or worst) that you have read?

Ideas for prompts are always welcome!

RIP Edna O’Brien, Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer, who passed away on July 27 at the age of 93.

Today’s literary birthdays (all info courtesy of Wikipedia):
Vasily Sleptsov (1836), Russian short story writer, novelist and journalist (RIP 1878)
Peter Rosegger (1843), Austrian poet (RIP 1918)
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (AKA Premchand, 1880), Indian short story writer, novelist, playwright, essayist and translator (RIP 1936)
Peter Nichols (1927), English playwright (RIP 2019)
Lynne Reid Banks (1929), British novelist and biographer, best known for The Indian in the Cupboard, but she wrote novels for adults as well (RIP 2024)
William Bennett (1943). American political writer
Jonathan Dimbleby (1944), British historian
Ian Beck (1947), English illustrator and author of children’s books
Faye Kellerman (1952), American mystery writer
Lynne Rae Perkins (1956) American author and illustrator of children’s books
Kim Newman (1959), English horror and science fiction author, and film historian
J.K. Rowling (1965), British children’s and adult novelist, garbage person
Feel free to comment about any of these folks, and/or let us know if I missed somebody.

Posting pictures is fine as long as they are book related, but I would like this thread to continue to be a NO GIF/YouTube/social media embed zone as much as possible. Thanks, and happy commenting!