Born on February 14, 2010

Doug Fieger defined the power-pop sound of the late 1970s as the frontman of The Knack, most notably penning the chart-topping anthem My Sharona. His death from cancer silenced a songwriter whose aggressive, melodic guitar work bridged the gap between 1960s British Invasion hooks and the raw energy of the burgeoning new wave movement.

Linnart Mäll died on January 7, 2010. He'd spent fifty years translating sacred texts most Estonians couldn't access — the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching. During Soviet occupation, when religious texts were banned, he worked on them anyway. He hid manuscripts. Published under pseudonyms. Smuggled pages across borders. After independence, his translations became standard texts in Estonian universities. He introduced an entire generation to Eastern philosophy in their own language. He did it because he believed small nations survive by knowing how other people think.

Dick Francis broke his collarbone seventeen times as a jockey. He rode for the Queen Mother. Then he retired and his wife Mary said he should write a thriller. He'd never written anything. Dead Cert came out in 1962 — about fixing horse races, which he knew cold. He wrote forty-two more novels, one a year like clockwork, every one a bestseller. Mary plotted them all. When she died in 2000, he kept writing but said it wasn't the same. He was right.