It's the birthday of the late, great Isaac Asimov. One of the giants of science fiction, Asimov is well-known for works such as the Foundation series. (Movie buffs will remember the 2004 Will Smith film, "I, Robot," based Asimov's ideas on robotics.) But his writing ranged far beyond sci-fi. A search in the library catalog for this author brings up an astounding 190 hits. He wrote detective stories, published in collections such as "The Return of the Black Widowers." He also wrote on a wide variety of nonfiction topics, ranging from history to literature to science.

Asimov backed his science fiction with a strong knowledge of science fact, and many of his nonfiction works cover science topics, such as:

• Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery. (REF 509 A; non-circulating)
• Asimov's New Guide to Science. (Adult Nonfiction 500 A)
• Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space (Adult Nonfiction 520 A)

Among his other books were works on number theory (Asimov on Numbers), history (Rome, Egypt , the Middle East, France, and North America, and others); the human brain (The Human Brain: Its Capacities and Functions), and even a guide to Shakespeare.

Asimov's books for children include several on the planets; an environmental series covering topics such as acid rain, litter, and rainforests; a biography of Christopher Columbus; and many more.

For information about this remarkable and prolific author, try one of Asimov's autobiographies:

• It's Been a Good Life (BIOG As422)
• In Joy Still Felt : the Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954-1978 (BIOG As422)
• In Memory Yet Green : the Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954 (BIOG As422)

Or, search for "Asimov" in the Biography Resource Center database to read what others had to say about Asimov. For more about Asimov's writings, try searching for articles in the Literature Resource Center. Literature Resource Center provides literary criticism of authors' works, lists any pseudonyms they used, shows who their contemporaries were, and may provide links to related web sites.

Explore!

David Halberstam, well-known author, and Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting for the New York Times during the Vietnam War, died Monday at the age of 73. He died in a car crash in California while on his way from a speaking engagement at Berkeley to an interview during which he had planned to research the subject of a new book.

America's obituaries and death notices, a database available on the library's website, currently has obituaries from ten different newspapers for David Halberstam. These can be accessed by entering his first and last name in the box marked Name of the Deceased. His career as a writer began in 1955, when, after his graduation from Harvard, he traveled to the South to write about race relations there. He went on to report from the Vietnam war, where his goal was to keep the American people informed of the truth about the Vietnam war. In addition to his reporting, he has also written 21 books ranging in topic from history through sports. Regardless of what he was writing, he was first and foremost a reporter.

Biography Resource Center, another database on the library's website, has not yet updated their database information to reflect his death, but only about 24 hours has passed. The database does have considerable information about his writing career and his life, including three narrative biographies .

Nashua Public Library currently has a special display of his writings on the counter to the right of the circulation desk. As a sports fan, Halberstam wrote about people and memorable games. His 2005 book The education of a coach is about Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots. His 2003 book The teammates deals with the bond of friendship formed by four Red Sox team members which still endured sixty years later. After 9/11, David Halberstam wrote a book called Firehouse which told the story of one of the engine and ladder companies in New York most affected by the tragedy of that day. Although this book is currently available only as a downloadable audiobook from the state library, a print copy has been ordered for NPL.

Whether he was writing about war, politics, current events or sports, David Halberstam researched everything thoroughly. All the facts were always there; the reader could believe in what Halberstam wrote as strongly as he did. He will be greatly missed.

I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Garrison Keillor's birthday today. He has been a source of inspiration for me for many blog entries. He is also an ardent supporter of public libraries, as evidenced in a wonderful speech he made at the American Library Association annual conference this year. (It was broadcast on C-SPAN a couple of weeks ago and is still available online for viewing.) Snippets of his speech were repeated in his June 27 article on Salon.com, "The Library Fix," in which he referred to the public library as "one of the nobler expressions of democracy."

Keillor is best known for his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, which is broadcast on National Public Radio. The show features live music, plus skits such as Guy Noir, Private Eye (and, of course, the adventures of Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian). One of the mainstays of the show is the news from Lake Wobegon, a fictional Minnesota town. Keillor has written a number of books based on his Lake Wobegon radio characters. Among these are:

Lake Wobegon Summer 1956
Wobegon Boy
Mother, father, uncle, aunt: stories from Lake Wobegon (audiocassette)

A new Lake Wobegon title, Pontoon, is due out in September.

Keillor is also behind a little project called the Writer's Almanac. The Writer's Almanac is a short daily broadcast on National Public Radio. It usually follows the format of discussing the major literary landmarks of the day--authors' birthdays, anniversaries of publications, and so on--followed by a reading of a poem. Many's the commute that was made more pleasant by a few minutes of the Writer's Almanac. Archives of the program are available online at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org. Along those lines, Keillor has published a couple of poetry anthologies, consisting of poems that he selected: Good Poems for Hard Times (large print) and Good Poems.

You can read more about Garrison Keillor in the Literature Resource Center database, found on our web site at http://www.nashua.lib.nh.us/IbrowseAdultAlpha.htm.

One of the titans of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, died yesterday in Sri Lanka. He was 90. Many of you will recognize him as the author of the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels. You might be surprised to learn that he also wrote extensively on nonfiction topics such as space and the sea.

If you search for Arthur C. Clarke in the Literature Resource Center database, you'll find an extensive list of honors and awards. He won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise, among others, and the Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and had an asteroid named in his honor.

More significantly, he won the Stuart Ballantine Gold Medal in 1963, for originating the concept of communications satellites (Contemporary Authors Online, Thompson Gale, 2007). He was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Price in 1994.

Though he was 90 years old, he was still publishing. His latest fiction title was Firstborn, which he cowrote with Stephen Baxter. Published just this year, it's the third book in the Time Odyssey series. When it's not checked out, you'll find it in the library's New Arrivals display.

Those of you who read and loved his work, please drop us a comment about his contributions.