The journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup led the hunt this month on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book to find the favourite neglected classic. Listeners chose The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. She is prolific, writing for several newspapers as an art critic and agony aunt as well as chairing the weekly Book Show for Sky Arts. Recently she questioned why, when baby boomers have so much disposable income, “everything from advertising to TV programming is focused so much on youth?” Mariella Frostrup is 47 today. RGT
Birthdays today
Nadia Comaneci, Romanian gymnast, 48; Dame Peggy Fenner, Conservative MP for Medway, 1983-97, 87; Ian Graham, Maya explorer and archaeologist, 86; Nicola Harwin, chief executive, Women’s Aid Federation of England, 57; John A.