Jonathan Franzen is 52 today -- American novelist

Today in WRITER's ALMANAC (Garrison Keillor, Minn. Public Radio):

Author Jonathan Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, on August 17, 1959. He grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He studied German at Swarthmore College and then went to Berlin on a Fulbright fellowship. When he came home, he started on his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City (1988), writing eight hours a day during the week and working as a research assistant in a Harvard seismology lab on the weekends. His seismology experience provided material for his second novel, Strong Motion (1992).
His third novel, The Corrections (2001), took him eight years to write, and it was published just a couple of days before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Oprah named it to her book club, but Franzen made some disparaging remarks about the literary merit of some of her previous selections. He also worried that it would alienate male readers: "I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience," he told NPR's Fresh Air, "and I've heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say, 'If I hadn't heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it.'" Oprah withdrew the invitation.
He's also written a collection of essays (How to Be Alone, 2002), and a memoir (The Discomfort Zone, 2006). His most recent novel, Freedom, was released in 2010.