Colette was born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, but she always wrote under the name "Colette." The date of her birth was January 28, 1873. Colette was a French writer, who is perhaps best known for Gigi (1944), which was adapted to the stage and big screen. Other works include: The Vagabond (1910), Music-Hall Sidelights (1913), and The Last of Cheri (1926).

Here are a few quotes from Colette, including this one: "It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."

Also, take a look at more resources from Jone Lewis, Women's History.

Do you remember the first novel you picked up? Was it for school, or did you take it off a shelf somewhere and start to fumble through the words? What are your early memories of reading?

It's easy to forget those early glimpses into novel explorations. Even if a few years have passed, I hope the time has been filled with many more adventures in in reading. If we look back at those early works, we're sometimes able to find books that will still touch us--even now, even years later.

If you're bored with reading, or having a hard time finding a book that sparks your attention, why not return to books you've loved before? Read them again, or find books by the same author. Even if you've already devoured all the books before, you may find that revisiting those favorites is just what you need to re-inspire your passion for reading. Remember when...?

In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith writes: "Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time."

In Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther explores the process of death: discovery, fighting, living on, and then dying. The process becomes just a little bit easier, as humor, human kindness and courage all are woven in. More than just about dying, this memoir becomes a study of living.

Gunther asked himself the larger questions: "Why was Johnny being subjected to this merciless experience?" And, then he says, "suffering is an inevitable part of most lives."

Gunther wanted to believe there was some greater purpose, like the works of art that came out of Milton's blindness and Beethoven's deafness. He says, "perhaps the entire harrowing episode would make his brain even finer, subtler, and more sensitive than it was." Find more links and resources about death in literature.

Read the original Death be not Proud, by John Donne. Also have you watched/experienced the play, Wit. Then, join the discussion: Things you return to again and again.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is famous for "I have a dream..." It's a speech full of hope for the future (a dream that our children will live in harmony, that freedom and justice will prevail, and that an environment of hope, faith and brotherhood will transform).

Perhaps it's because that "I have a dream" speech touches me still... But, for me, January is a time of hope. It's a time when we can look forward--to gather around us that which we cherish most, and delve into a new year. So, what do you cherish? What do you love? What are the things (abstract and specific: books, libraries, education, learning, being, becoming) about which you feel most passionate? How will you support, encourage, and embellish those passions in the days, moments, and spots of time that are left in 2009?

Salman Rushdie said, "Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart."