Thursday, January 03, 2008

RIP: George MacDonald Fraser

One of my favorite authors died yesterday ... George MacDonald Fraser. He wrote the wonderful Flashman series of books which my friend Dennis just introduced me to last year.

I just got one of his non-fiction books for Christmas, Quartered Safe Out Here. I stumbled across this book while shopping for my Secret Santa as part of LibraryThing's SantaThing. From my Secret Santa's library I knew (1) he reads tons of military history and biography and (2) he'd listed George MacDonald Fraser as a favorite author. Quartered Safe Out Here is Fraser's autobiographical account of serving in Burma during the latter part of World Ward II. A perfect match!

In reading about the book, I decided to add it to my own LibraryThing tbr/wishlist and to check it out some time. Then, lo and behold, a few days later my sister sent me Quartered Safe Out Here for Christmas! (She is known for prowling through my tbr/wishlist and is very generous about sending me books from it.)

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/01/george_macdonald_fraser_1925_2.html

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2234527,00.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/arts/03fraser.html

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