Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 9/20/2007

9/20/1987:
Jan Stephenson defeats Nancy Lopez by one stroke to win the Safeco Classic in suburban Seattle. It's her first tournament victory since suffering serious injuries in a car accident earlier this year, causing her to drop out of a tournament she was leading after three rounds. Stephenson fires a four-under-par 68 today and finishes 11 under par for the tourney, earning a first prize check of $33,750.

Birthdays:
Red Auerbach b. 1917
Tommy Nobis b. 1943
Dave Twardzik b. 1950
Guy Lafleur b. 1951
Bonzi Wells b. 1976

Indian Summer is so sweet and delightful you’ll be astonished more people don’t know about it. It’s the story of three Americans in Florence and the love triangle that forms amongst them. John Updike says that “a midlife crisis has rarely been sketched in fiction with better humor, with gentler comedy, and more gracious acceptance of life’s irrevocability.”

INDIAN SUMMER, by William Dean Howells (1886; New York Review Books Classics, 2004)

William Dean Howells worked at the Atlantic Monthly and later Harper’s Magazine, where he collaborated with writers including Mark Twain and Henry James.