The death of political humorist (and GalleyCat fave) Art Buchwald has been covered extensively, and deservedly, all over the place this week, but Shelf Awareness points to one obit that ran yesterday in the Vineyard Gazette, the local paper for Martha’s Vineyard, where Buchwald often spent his summers. “The world of the printed word has lost a great icon,” declared Ann Nelson, owner of the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore yesterday. Nelson said a sign went up in the bookstore bidding farewell to Buchwald. “He always told me I had the power to make or break a writer’s racket, and he said, ‘I love her especially when she puts my book in the window,'” Nelson recalled.
Meanwhile, publishing in the UK mourns the loss of Richard Horne, who wrote political cartoons and children’s books under the pseudonym of Harry Horse. Horne was found dead in his home along with his wife, Mandy. The deaths are believed to be a suicide pact-Horse’s wife had been ill with multiple sclerosis for some time. “I was Harry’s fiction editor for 10 years at Puffin, and was privileged to work on three of the Roo books with him,” commented Puffin Senior Editor Yvonne Hooker to Publishing News. “How wonderful to be the first reader of Roo and GRANDFATHER’S AMAZING JOURNEYS into worlds that only Harry could have dreamed up. I truly believe he was a genius.”