Another Buffalo Native’s High School Yearbook Photos

Today’s blog entry features retired professional basketball player Bob Lanier, in his yearbook pictures from Bennett High School, 1966.  Lanier played for the Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks, retiring in 1984.

2014 Marks the 75th Anniversary of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

The staff of the Rare Book Room wants to remind readers of John Steinbeck’s masterpiece of realism, The Grapes of Wrath, as book lovers the world over celebrate the 75th anniversary of this Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning novel.  It is also considered the main reason that Steinbeck later won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Along with Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath is referred to as the Great American Novel, and both were critically acclaimed but often banned or even burned.   As our Library Scrapbooks reveal, it was even banned at one time by our own Buffalo Public Library after its release in April of 1939.

Steinbeck’s greatest work has certainly stood the test of time and is now generally considered a “must read” for anyone interested in the best and most influential works of the American literary canon.

Speaking of Yearbook photos…

Check out Emmy and Tony award-winning actress and Buffalo native, Christine Baranski, as she appeared in her high school yearbook, the Villa Maria Academy Immaculatan, 1970:

Keep an eye out for future blog entries on Buffalo natives.