Well, by George, Bobbie - you got there, with Annette and Cynthia nipping at your heels. TM, really, I t hought you'd get one or two, but not seven - lol. George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 - 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his play of the same name), respectively. Shaw turned down all other awards and honours, including the offer of a knighthood. Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead vocalist and a founder member of the Rolling Stones. Jagger studied business courses at the London School of Economics, and had seriously considered becoming either a journalist or a politician, comparing the latter to a pop star. Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". In 1989 Jagger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. Multiple Silver, Gold and Platinum albums and records. Kevin Spacey, CBE (born Kevin Spacey Fowler; July 26, 1959) is an American actor, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s, culminating in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects (1995), followed by an Academy Award for Best Actor for American Beauty . During a career which has earned Spacey several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, his other starring roles include Seven (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), Pay It Forward (2000), K-PAX (2001), and Superman Returns (2006). He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 to 2014. He currently stars as Frank Underwood in the Netflix series House of Cards. Sandra Annette Bullock (born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer. She rose to fame in the 1990s with roles in films such as Demolition Man (1993), Speed (1994), The Net (1995), While You Were Sleeping (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), and Hope Floats (1998). In the new millennium, Bullock starred in Miss Congeniality (2000), Two Weeks Notice (2002), The Lake House (2006), and the critically acclaimed Crash (2004) and Gravity (2013). Bullock had initially turned down the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side three times due to a discomfort with portraying a devout Christian. She was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress Motion Picture Drama, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. The Blind Side also received an Academy Award for Best Picture nomination. So, there is our foursome!! Fearsome, huh?? I think so. So, for Bobbie: For Cynthia: And for Annette: Thanks to all for my Birthday wishes and for playing. See you next week. Now I'm off to check out Cynthia's question!! Nancy.

Here is an exerpt from the official Booker Man site: "The prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008 after launching in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland." Okay.........WHY change the whole premise? I understand the " every kid is equal and every one has to get a trophy" epidemic that seems to be sweeping our country ...but let's leave some things alone.

About nine years ago, I began reading The Black Book, and halfway throught it, it got dense. I stopped. Several months later, I picked up the book again, skipped those chapters, and finished reading it. It was OK. Now I have Snow, but have not read it yet. On Wednesday I went to Barnes & Noble and was surprised that there was not a single display of Orhan Pamuk's books (they usually display prominently award-winning authors and books, as some of you are most likely aware). I couldn't help but wonder if it would have been different had an American writer won the Prize...

I've been a fan of Alice Munro's work for many years. To me it's not so much that she's Canadian through and through, and her work gives us a picture of some Canadian lives, but that she calls attention to the lives of women who aren't spectacularly distinguished in any way except in their very survival under less than ideal conditions. So often a story of hers will center around a woman who has worked or struggled very hard, with little reward. Figuring in her stories distinguishes them--for all time, one hopes.