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         Len Deighton (born 1929) is a British author. His publications have included cookery books and works on history, but he is best known for his spy novels. He had several jobs before writing his first novel, The IPCRESS File, in 1962; it was a critical and commercial success. He wrote several spy novels featuring the same central character, an unnamed working-class intelligence officer. Between 1962 and 1966, Deighton was the food correspondent for The Observer and drew cookstrips – black-and-white graphic recipes with a limited number of words. A selection of these was collected and published in 1965 as Len Deighton's Action Cook Book, the first of five cookery books he wrote. Other topics of non-fiction include military history. Many of his books have been best-sellers and he has been favourably compared with John le Carré. Deighton's fictional work is marked by a complex narrative structure, extensive research and an air of verisimilitude. Several of his works have been adapted for film and radio. (Full article...)

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On this day: September 29th

December 11

Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

1789 – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (structure pictured), one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century, was chartered.
1886 – The London-based football club Arsenal, then known as Dial Square, played their first match on the Isle of Dogs.
1920 – Irish War of Independence: Following an Irish Republican Army ambush of an Auxiliary patrol, British forces burned and looted numerous buildings in Cork.
2006 – Criticized worldwide as a "meeting of Holocaust deniers", the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust opened in Tehran.

Averroes (d. 1198)
Kamehameha V (b. 1830; d. 1872)
Carl von In der Maur (d. 1913)
Big Mama Thornton (b. 1926)

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