The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. The book was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. The Great Gatsby received favorable reviews but was a commercial disappointment, selling fewer than 20,000 copies in the first six months. At the time of the author's death in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. During World War II, the novel surged in popularity when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies to American soldiers serving overseas. This newfound popularity launched a critical re- examination, and now the book is widely considered to be a literary masterwork.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1718:

The pirate Blackbeard was killed in battle by a boarding party of British sailors off the coast of North Carolina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard

1908:

The Congress of Manastir standardized the Albanian alphabet, a date commemorated as Alphabet Day in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Manastir

1928:

Boléro, French composer Maurice Ravel's most famous musical composition, premiered at the Paris Opéra. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol%C3%A9ro

1971:

In Britain's worst mountaineering tragedy, the Cairngorm Plateau disaster, five teenage students and one of their leaders were found dead from exposure in the Scottish Highlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorm_Plateau_disaster

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

grace note: 1. (music) A musical note, indicated on a score in smaller type with or without a slash through it, played to ornament the melody rather than as part of it. Its note value does not count as part of the total time value of the measure it appears in. 2. (figuratively) Something that decorates, embellishes, or ornaments; a finishing touch. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grace_note

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself — and thus make yourself indispensable.   --André Gide https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Gide