American bibliophiles

Anthony Jeselnik ( JES-əl-nik; born December 22, 1978) is an American comedian, writer, actor, and producer. He is known for his dark comedy style, which emphasizes ironic misdirection, non sequiturs, biting insults, an arrogant demeanor, and a stage persona that frequently takes amoral stances.

Arthur Ira Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is an American singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel.

John Herbert Gleason (February 26, 1916 – June 24, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, writer, composer, and conductor known affectionately as "The Great One." Developing a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy, exemplified by his city-bus-driver Ralph Kramden character in the television series The Honeymooners. He also developed The Jackie Gleason Show, which maintained high ratings from the mid-1950s through 1970. After originating in New York City, filming moved to Miami Beach, Florida in 1964 after Gleason took up permanent residence there.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ROH-zə-velt; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900 and the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.

John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. Born and raised in Baltimore, Waters rose to prominence in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), and Female Trouble (1974). He wrote and directed the 1988 comedy film Hairspray, which became an international success and turned into a hit Broadway musical, which has remained in almost continuous production. Waters has written and directed other successful films, including Polyester (1981), Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Pecker (1998), and Cecil B. Demented (2000).

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a former U.S. Marine who assassinated United States president John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg.

Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize (2019). Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) and short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Hubert Henry Harrison (April 27, 1883 – December 17, 1927) was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, race and class conscious political activist, and radical internationalist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as "the father of Harlem radicalism" and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as "the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time." John G. Jackson of American Atheists described him as "The Black Socrates".

Elmer Belt (April 10, 1893-May 1980) was an American urologist, surgeon and pioneer in sex reassignment surgery. He was also known as a collector of works relating to Leonardo da Vinci that now reside in the University of California, Los Angeles Library System.