1st January E.M. Forster, 2nd January Isaac Asimov, 3rd January J.R.R. Tolkien, 4th January Isaac Newton, 5th January W.D. Snodgrass (Just love his name – it’s a character all of it’s own!), 6th January C.D. Wright, 7th January Gerald Durrell, 8th January Terry Brooks, 9th January Philippa Gregory and 10th January Dorianne Laux.
Of course, there are other famous author birthday’s to consider, I am only showing a few. Some are posthumous, while others are celebrated through social media greetings and memes. Another ‘birthday’ celebration writers hold are for the launching date of a book, and some authors recognize these milestones annually. For a non-writer this may seem odd, but when our stories go out into the world it is akin to a birth. We have nurtured and loved the creation of a narrative for months, sometimes years prior to the actual launching date, and so it is thus deserving of a celebration.
Do you have a favorite author whose birthday you celebrate?
It is always exciting to begin a New Year and a new book! I have an impressive book pile to begin 2023, and will, as always, leave a review on Goodreads for each one.
I would love to know what you are reading this month and why you chose it. Also please review each book you read, as these reviews are the life blood for authors. It validates all their hard work in creating a time, place and characters from their imaginations. Your review can be one sentence long, it doesn’t have to be a synopsis of the narrative.
My first book for 2023 is Villa Serena by Domenica De Rosa. As many of my followers know I love Italy, and this will in some small way ease my hankering to fly to Italy in 2023 and escape the Alberta winter.
I have set my Goodreads 2023 challenge. Why not do the same?
You can, of course, find many reading challenges online – here is a selection!
This is my last book review of 2022, which is apt as it is centered around book people, just like us!
REVIEW: This is one of those novels that grips you from the first chapter. It is a joy for readers and writers alike as you follow Liv on her journey from cleaner to ghost writer. Getting inside a writer’s mind is as difficult for a reader as it is for one writer to another. A spellbinding story, I absolutely loved.
I managed to finish my Goodreads Reading Challenge for 2022 as well, and will look forward to another year of great stories in 2023. This is my TBR pile for this coming year.
How does yours look?
What book are you most excited about reading this year? Will it be a new novel by a favourite author, or a new genre?
I let you know I was behind on my 2022 reading challenge recently. To help me catch up, I put several local author books on top of my pile. I’d purchased these when I attended two recent book events, Words on the Street and Words in the Park.
As you know I always review every book I read on Goodreads, so you can find my reviews of these books there.
Read books:
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Whistler’s Night by H.M. Sander
Ready to Burn by Mandy Michelle
Saving Grace (Heart’s Haven book 2) by Katie O’Connor
I attended Words on the Street this Saturday in Lethbridge with my publisher, Dream Write Publishing. This was an annual event I enjoyed until COVID postponed it. So, this first in-person return to the book festival since 2019 was a joy. I reconnected with local authors and met new readers to my novels. To discuss my stories is always a fun conversation, as those who know my work, understand my ability to ‘flip’ ideas on their heads and give surprisingly twists and turns in my narratives.
As a reader I also took advantage of an independent bookstore’s weekend sale. The Purple Platypus in Castor, is jam packed with books and picking one or two is impossible. I left with a bag of books! More for my ever expanding TBR pile. (You know the problem all too well, I’m sure.)
Added to these were novels from three Lethbridge authors – Jenna Greene, Bianca Rowena, and Mandy Michelle.
So after I finish Fairy Tale by Stephen King I will have a difficult decision to make – which book do I choose first. Do any of these speak to you? Which one would you choose?
Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers 