BW8: Book Festivals and birthdays

Time for a round of book festival news and bookish birthdays as I'm still traipsing around South America and hiking with Mark Adam's in Turn Right at Machu Picchu,  There are quite a few historical books about the Incas that sound intriguing including Kim McQuarries The Last Days of the Incas, and  Hugh Thomson's The White Rock,  If you haven't checked out Historicalnovels.com, they have a great selection set in precolumbian era and the Spanish conquest, 17th-20th century as well as mysteries. Fiction wise, check out goodreads list of Aztec, Maya and and Inca reads.

We may have missed the Hay Festival Cartagena 2017 in January, but there are plenty of links to all the authors involved and will most likely will be next year as well. However, start preparing yourself for the Paraty International Literary Festival which will take place late July in Brazil.

The Literary Women Festival is coming up the first weekend in March as well as the Festival Leue Literature in New York highlighting German language books. To check out festivals coming up in your area, go to the Book and Literary Festivals calendar on Everfest.

Authors celebrating birthdays this week are:

February 19:  Colombian poet and novelist José Eustasio Rivera and American writer Amy Tan

February 20:  South African novelist Alex La Guma and French novelist Georges Bernanos as well as Japanese novelist Shiga Naoya

February 21:  Humorist Erma Bombeck and novelist Anaïs Nin as well as poet W.H. Auden

February 22:  Author Edward Gorey and Australian poet John Shaw Neilson as well as Nobel prize winner and Greek novelist Giorgos Seferis

February 23:  English diarist Samuel Pepys and poet Haki R. Madhubuti 

February 24:  German author Wilhelm Carl Grimm and Polish novelist Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski

February 25:  English author Anthony Burgess and Journalist George Schuyler

Have fun following rabbit trails! 

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In Your URL field link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW30: More book news!

I'm sure everyone has heard the news about J.K. Rowling's The Cuckoo's Calling which was written under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith.  I recently downloaded and will let you know what I think.   When Harry Potter first came out, I didn't give it a thought. But when I heard the hype about it and calls to ban the book, well of course I had to read it. And fell in love with the characters and the story. Same thing happened with Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.  Read it twice and loved it.   Rowling was a bit upset about the leak revealing she wrote the book.  I guess she hoped it stand on its own merits and sell not because of her name.  There are many authors who have written stories under different pseudonyms including Don Delillo who published under a book under a woman's name. Even Stephen King wrote a few novels under the name Richard Bachman back in the 70's and 80's. 

And for those of you who are armchair traveling around the world with me.  A Pack of Fun, one of the gals from Well Trained Mind, shared a link to A Year of Reading the World where a writer, Ann Morgan talks about a challenge she set for herself to read one book from every country in the world in one year.  Be sure to check out her list of books. You may just end up adding a few to your wishlists.

Speaking of wishlists and bucket lists - here's a few authors with birthdays this week to add.


July 21 - Ernest Hemingway / John Gardner
July 22 - Emma Lazarus / Mark McGarrity
July 23 - Raymond Chandler /  John Nichols
July 24 - Alexandre Dumas / Zelda Fitzgerald
July 25 - David Madison /  Robyn Carr
July 26 - George Bernard Shaw / Aldous Huxley

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Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW21: Literary Birthdays

Armchair traveling through the continents is and has been a fun and educational experience since I normally don't seek out literature from specific regions. Plus discussing books weekly with the gals on the Well Trained Mind forum has introduced me to authors I never considered reading before.  Which brings me to literary birthdays this week. We have an intriguing selection of authors to check out.

Today, May 19 is the anniversary of Lorraine Vivian Hansberry's birthday, best known for her 1959 play Raisin in the Sun, a play based on her family's experiences in chicago during the 1930's/40's.  A film version with the original cast including Sidney Poitier was released in 1961, a musical adaptation in 1973 and turned into a movie with Danny Glover in 1989.  Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer January 12, 1965.

May 20th  is the anniversary of French Novelist Honore de Balzac (1799 -1850)who wrote 80 novels and short stories collectively called  La Comédie humaine,(The Human Comedy).

May 21st is the anniversary of Italian author Dante Alighiere,(1265-1321) author of The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.

May 22nd is the anniversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), best known for his fictional series about Sherlock Holmes.

May 23rd is the anniversary of  Thomas Hood (1799-1845), English poet and playwright  and John Howard Payne, (1791 - 1852) American poet and author who is best remembered for his 1822 song "Home Sweet Home."

May 24th is the 85 birthday of irish novelist William Trevor, who won the Booker Prize in 2009 for his novel Love and Summer and knighted in 2002 for his services in literature.

May 25th is the anniversary of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), american poet and essayist.

Consider adding one or more of these authors to your reading wishlist. 

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  Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.