"It's the birthday of Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler, born in Montreal (1931). His first novel, The Acrobats (1954), is about a young Canadian painter in Spain with a group of expatriates and revolutionaries. Richler was a sharp cultural critic, and his books The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959), St. Urbain's Horsemen (1971), and Joshua Then and Now (1980) all deal with greed and success. He wrote a collection of humorous essays titled Notes on an Endangered Species and Others (1974), and a series of children's books. He said, 'Coming from Canada, being a writer and Jewish as well, I have impeccable paranoia credentials.' "

(from Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" on National Public Radio in the U.S.)