Do you share a birthday with your favorite author? Here, we take a look at novelists, poets, journalists, and other writers born during the month of August. Click here to find titles from these authors in our collection.

 

August 1
Herman Melville (1819) Moby Dick

August 2
James Baldwin (1924) Go Tell it on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Notes of a Native Son
Isabelle Allende (1942) The House of the Spirits, Daughter of Fortune

August 3
P.D. James (1920) Adam Dalgliesh mystery series, Death Comes to Pemberley
Leon Uris (1924) Exodus, QBVII

August 4
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792) Poet, Prometheus Unbound, To a Skylark
Sapphire (1950) Push, The Kid
Barack Obama (1961) The Audacity of Home, Dreams from My Father
Dennis Lehane (1965) Mystic River, Shutter Island

August 5
Guy de Maupassant (1850) The Necklace, Bel Ami
Conrad Aiken (1889) Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner
Richard Preston (1954) The Hot Zone, Micro: A Novel

August 6
Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809) Poet, The Charge of the Light Brigade
Piers Anthony (1934) Magic of Xanth series

August 7
Garrison Keillor (1942) Lake Wobegon series, A Prairie Home Companion
Ann Beattie (1947) The Accomplished Guest, Chilly Scenes of Winter

August 8
Sara Teasdale (1884) Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896) The Yearling, Cross Creek

August 9
Daniel Keyes (1927) Flowers for Algernon
Barbara Delinsky (1945) While My Sister Sleeps, Not My Daughter
Jonathan Kellerman (1949) The Golem of Hollywood, Alex Delaware mystery series

August 10
Mark Doty (1953) Poet, Dog Years, Deep Lane
Suzanne Collins (1962) The Hunger Games series, The Underland Chronicles

August 11
Alex Haley (1921) Roots, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
David Brooks (1961) The Road to Character, New York Times columnist

August 12
William Goldman (1931) Marathon Man, The Princess Bride
Walter Dean Myers (1937) Jazz, Monster, Slam!
Sue Monk Kidd (1948) The Secret Life of Bees, The Invention of Wings
Ann M. Martin (1955) Main Street series, Babysitter’s Club series
Chris Bohjalian (1960) Midwives, Before You Know Kindness
Anthony Swofford (1970) Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War

August 13
Tom Perrotta (1961) Little Children, The Leftovers, Election

August 14
Steve Martin (1945) Shopgirl, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life
Danielle Steel (1947) The Promise, Daddy, Leap of Faith
Gary Larson (1950) Cartoonist, The Far Side

August 15
Edna Ferber (1885) Giant, Cimarron, Show Boat
Julia Child (1912) Mastering the Art of French Cooking, My Life in France

August 16
Charles Bukowski (1920) Poet
Michael Buckley (1969) Sisters Grimm series

August 17
Eric Schlosser (1959) Fast Food Nation, Command and Control

August 18
Nicole Krauss (1974) The History of Love, Great House

August 19
Ogden Nash (1902) Poet
Frank McCourt (1930) Angela’s Ashes, Teacher Man
Jack Canfield (1944) Chicken Soup for the Soul series

August 20
H.P. Lovecraft (1890) Cthulhu Mythos series
Jacqueline Susann (1921) Valley of the Dolls, Once Is Not Enough
Greg Bear (1951) War Dog series, Forerunner Saga
James Rollins (1961) Sigma Force series, Order of the Sanguines series

August 21
Sharon Draper (1952) Hazelwood High Trilogy, Sassy series

August 22
Dorothy Parker (1893) Poet, Humorist, Short Story writer
Ray Bradbury (1920) Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine
E. Annie Proulx (1935) Barkskins, The Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain
Kurt Anderson (1954) True Believers

August 24
Jorge Luis Borges (1899) El Aleph, On Mysticism
Howard Zinn (1922) A People’s History of the United States
Oscar Hijuelos (1951) The Mambo Kings Play Songs of love, Beautiful Maria of My Soul
Orson Scott Card (1951) Ender Saga, Pathfinder series
John Green (1977) The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska

August 26
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

August 27
Theodore Dreiser (1871) An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie
Ira Levin (1929) Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives

August 28
Barbara Hambly (1951) Benjamin January mystery series
Rita Dove (1952) Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, Good Poems for Hard Times

August 30
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797) Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus

August 31
William Saroyan (1908) The Human Comedy, The Time of Your Life
Stephen Coonts (1944) Deep Black series, Jake Grafton adventure series
Blake Nelson (1965) Recovery Road, The Prince of Venice Beach