The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

EYING THE YEAR OF THE TIGER - In Honor Of Chinese New Year Which Falls During This Challenge (February 14th, 2010) Read A Book Written By An Author Who Shares Your Chinese Zodiac Sign.
If You Go To (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_...) You Will Find A Chart Of The Different Signs; Click On The Animal And You Will See All Of The Years That Correspond To That Sign.

Ex. I Was Born In The Year Of The Dog So I Could Read A Book Written By Mitch Albom (1958) Or Kurt Vonnegut (1922)

For Help Finding Authors Born In A Particular Year See http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/years

If you need suggestions for books to read for this task post a request here.

I've been doing some research for this one. I didn't go very far back (Only as far back as 1925) but some well known authors born in the year of the OX include:

Stephenie Meyer
Arundhati Roy
Jennifer Crusie
Diane Mott Davidson
Ken Follett
James Thayer
Jane Urquhart
Jilly Cooper
Lois Lowry
Colleen McCullough

I hope this helps some people!

Good idea, Tanya. Here are some for the year of the Monkey:

Ian Fleming
Elizabeth George Speare
Richard Wright
Richard Adams
Ray Bradbury
Charles Bukowski
Dick Francis
P.D. James
Mario Puzo
Natalie Babbitt
Robert B. Parker
Katherine Paterson
Sylvia Plath
John Updike
Fannie Flagg
Richard Ford
Armistead Maupin
Bernhard Schlink
Alice Walker
Patricia Cornwell
Carol Higgins Clark
Michael Connolly
David Guterson
Julia Glass
Ha Jin
Douglas Preston
David Sedaris
John Connolly
Jane Green
Elizabeth Noble


Wiki only has the dates listed from 1908, but if we can go earlier than that:

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dodie Smith
J.M. Barrie
Anton Chekov
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Elizabeth Gaskell

Tanya wrote: "I've been doing some research for this one. I didn't go very far back (Only as far back as 1925) but some well known authors born in the year of the OX include:

Stephenie Meyer
Jasper Fford
Ch..."

I was excited to see Murakami on the Ox list,but I double-checked and he has a pesky January birthday so he's year of the Rat- :(

Thanks for the start of a list though. Good jumping off point

Ack! Thanks for letting me know! I also had to remove Chuck Palahniuk and Jasper Fforde :(

http://www.rainfall.com/horoscop/chin...
this site has the January-February dates

Hey, you started a Rat list!

Tanya wrote: "some well known authors born in the year of the OX include:

Chuck Palanhuik "

Chuck Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) should be year of the tiger.

Other authors born in Tiger years:
David Foster Wallace
Tracy Chevalier
Neal Shusterman
Judy Blume
Richard Matheson
Dario Fo
Anne McCaffrey
Harper Lee
John Knowles
John Fowles
Ralph Ellison
Octavio Paz
Julio Cortázar
Howard Fast
Patrick O'Brian
Marguerite Duras
Bernard Malamud
Dylan Thomas
John Steinbeck

(ok, I only looked at Feb-Dec back to 1902; I was too lazy to check the Januarys in the following year.)

Here are ones for the Dog people out there.

Jenn Ashworth
Jessica Verday
R A Salvatore

This is ones I recognized back through '46.

The only two I wrote down for the
Year of the PIG:

Holly Black
Christopher Paolini

I remember all that talk about how young Paolini was and how amazing it was, and all that... Well, apparently, he was born the day before me! I could have had a book written and published if I'd started back in high school like him!

Wow, do we have to go down to the level of checking all the author's actual birthdays? I was just assuming from Cynthia's task description that we could simply use their birth YEAR.

Yeesh, this will take more research if we have to go down to birthday and birth year.

Cynthia, can I get some clarification on this point? Thanks!

Jessy wrote: "Here are ones for the Dog people out there.

Jenn Ashworth
Jessica Verday
R A Salvatore

This is ones I recognized back through '46."

Christopher Moore was also born in the Year of the Dog, 1946.

Rat seemed psychotically hard...until I realized looking at the year from wikipedia (instead of searching for a list of authors) was kinda stupid of me. Here's the list I've put together so far. I'm using Joan Aiken (though I might switch to Neil Gaiman or Terry Prachett (I wish I hadn't already read Good Omens)) for mine. Other authors I've found:

David Lindsay (March 1876)
Fernando Pessoa (June 1888)
T. S. Eliot (September 1888)
John Cheever (May 1912)
May Sarton (May 1912)
Patrick White (May 1912)
Kōbō Abe (March 1924)
Jorge Eielson (April 1924)
Vincent Cronin (May 1924--also has some books about royalty for anyone still needing something for that task)
Edward Field (June 1924)
James Baldwin (August 1924)
Truman Capote (September 1924)
Paul Zindel (May 1936)
June Jordan (June 1936)
Donna Jo Napoli (February 1948)
William Gibson (March 1948)
Margaret Weis (March 1948)
Terry Prachett (April 1948)
Charlotte Boyett-Compo (June 1948)
Laurence Yep (June 1948)
David Andrew Gemmell (August 1948)
Lynn Abbey (September 1948)
George R. R. Martin (September 1948 -- be prepared to hurl your book against the wall--just a warning :P)
Robert Jordan (October 1948)
Ellen Wittlinger (October 1948)
Linda Sue Park (March 1960)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch (June 1960)
Ann Downer (November 1960)
Neil Gaiman (November 1960)
Elizabeth Scott (April or May 1972)
Darren Shan (July 1972)
David Levithan (September 1972)
China Miéville (September 1972)
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (April 1984)

And, like someone mentioned earlier, Murakami Haruki.

I hope someone finds this list helpful...or at least doesn't make the same mistake I did with the search!

I only wrote down these for the year of the dragon...
Libba Bray
Christopher Moore
Dan Brown

I am reading Katie Ffordefor the year of the dragon.

rabbits:

margaret atwood
peter s. beagle
erskine caldwell
orson scott card
michael chabon
charles de lint
anita diamant
laura esquivel
joshua ferris
laurell k. hamilton
charlaine harris
marian keyes
joe r. lansdale
audrey niffenegger
garth nix
george orwell
gary paulsen
louise rennison
alice sebold
sherwood smith
james tiptree jr,
vivian vande velde
charles vess
scott westerfield
joan wolf
jane yolen

(yes, my name is bunny and i was born in the year of the rabbit. i also have two pet bunnies, haha!)

Krista wrote: "Wow, do we have to go down to the level of checking all the author's actual birthdays? I was just assuming from Cynthia's task description that we could simply use their birth YEAR...."

I believe you do need to check the actual date as Cynthia specified Chinese Zodiac sign. Like astrological signs that do not follow the months exactly, you only have to double check the dates around "the cusp" -- in this case checking the actual day if the author in question was born in January/February. Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, a date between January 21 and February 20.

Krista wrote: "Wow, do we have to go down to the level of checking all the author's actual birthdays? I was just assuming from Cynthia's task description that we could simply use their birth YEAR.

Yeesh, th..."Liz is correct their birth date needs to fall within the corresponding zodiac year.

Ms Anderson wrote: "Rat seemed psychotically hard...until I realized looking at the year from wikipedia (instead of searching for a list of authors) was kinda stupid of me. Here's the list I've put together so far. I'..."

How did I miss T.S. Eliot and James Baldwin?!? Thanks for the list Ms. Anderson!!!

Found a link with the start date of the Chinese New Year days (linked to our current calendar):

http://www.pinyin.info/chinese_new_ye...

Helpful in tracking down pre-1900 birthdays.

Hello.

I am just getting into looking up an author to select for this task. My birth date falls within the year of the Sheep(Ram or Goat, depending on the web site though)

Years for Sheep include: 1811; 1823; 1835; 1847; 1859; 1871; 1883; 1895; 1907; 1919; 1931; 1943; 1955; 1967 and 1979.

These were the only dates I found through the two links provided by Cynthia and Deedee (above post).

For clarification purposes, are we allowed to go further back than the dates offered in the link of your original post, Cynthia (that is 1907)???

If so Jane Austen (yippee!) and Mark Twain were both Year of the Sheep writers.

Jennifer wrote: "
Hello.

I am just getting into looking up an author to select for this task. My birth date falls within the year of the Sheep(Ram or Goat, depending on the web site though)

Years for Sheep includ..."Yes you can go back as far as you want.

Cynthia wrote: "Krista wrote: "Wow, do we have to go down to the level of checking all the author's actual birthdays? I was just assuming from Cynthia's task description that we could simply use their birth YEAR...."

Oh, yeeesh. I'll go back and do more research then. The first website provided by Cynthia for finding birth years doesn't give actual birth dates. (At least I didn't seem them when drilling into the author's pages) Are folks using Wikipedia to verify the actual birthdate?

I'm year of the Rat. I appreciate the list that Ms Anderson posted earlier. Here the the other author's whose have the correct birth years that I'm interested in. Now I'm trundling off to check birthdates for the folks listed below. :-)

1900 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Thomas Wolfe
1948 – Ian McEwan, Debbie Macomber
1949 – Ken Follett, Elizabeth George, Richard Russo
1960 – David Baldacci, Chris Bohjalian, Jeffrey Eugenides, Kaye Gibbons, Greg Iles
1961 – Jasper Fforde, Chuck Palahnuik

Here is another page with birthdays on it http://www.authdir.net/. It has the days not the years so you can cross reference.

Thanks Cynthia, that will be a big help!!

Okay, I *did* trundle off and do some more research. :-)

Here are some more authors born under the Year of the Rat sign.

1900 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery (6/29/00) and Thomas Wolfe (10/3/00)
1948 – Ian McEwan (6/21/48) and Debbie Macomber (10/22/48)
1960 – Jeffrey Eugenides (3/8/60) and Kaye Gibbons (5/5/60),
1961 - Jasper Fforde (1/11/61)

I am also interested in the authors listed below who were born in 1960, but I couldn't find a specific birthdate for any of them If anyone can find their birthdates and post them for me, I'd really appreciate it. I've looked on Wikipedia, their own websites and teh link Cynthia provided above. They all just list the birth year. Goodreads does show David Baldacci's birthdate as January 1st, 1960. That seems a little suspicious to me since it's not shown in any other website I could find.

1960 – David Baldacci, Chris Bohjalian, Greg Iles

Krista wrote: "Okay, I *did* trundle off and do some more research. :-)

Here are some more authors born under the Year of the Rat sign.

1900 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery (6/29/00) and Thomas Wolfe (10/3/0..."According to IMDB.com Baldacci is August 5th, Chris Bohjalian is August 1st according to Simon&Schuster, and I'm not having any luck with Greg Iles.

Cynthia wrote: "Krista wrote: "Okay, I *did* trundle off and do some more research. :-)

Here are some more authors born under the Year of the Rat sign.

1900 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery (6/29/00) and Thomas Wol..."

Thanks for the research help Cynthia. :-) I'll add David Baldacci and Chris Bohjalian to the Year of the Rat authors.

Wa-hoo!! I was thinkig about reading Water Witches by Bohjalian soon. Now I can fit it in on this task.

Hi Cynthia.

Thanks!

Okay, so this is what I have compiled so far for all of us Sheep/Goat/Ram people. (Again,depending on the site you visit there are different animals given.)

1775
10th Feb - Charles Lamb
16th Dec - Jane Austen

1787
16th Dec - Mary Russell Mitford

1799
20th May - Honore de Balzac
6th June - Aleksandr Pushkin

1811
14th June - Harriet Beecher Stowe
18th July - William Makepeace Thackeray

1835
30th Nov - Mark Twain
4th Dec - Samuel Butler

1859
1st Feb - Henry Miller
8th Mar - Kenneth Grahame
22nd May - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
6th July - Verner von Heidenstam (Swedish Nobel recipient)
4th Aug - Knut Hamsun (Norwegian Nobelist)

1871
27th Mar - Heinrich Mann
10th July - Marcel Proust
27th Aug - Theodore Dreiser
1st Nov - Stephen Crane

1883
10th Jan - Alexsei Nikolaevich Tolstoi
15th Feb - Sax Rohmer
16th Feb - Elizabeth Craig
3rd July - Franz Kafka

1895
24th Jan - Eugen Roth
28th Feb - Marcel Pagnol
29th Mar - Ernst Junger
24th July - Robert Graves

1907
13th May - Daphne du Maurier
10 Nov - John Moore
27th Nov - L. Sprague de Camp

1919
1st Jan - J.D. Salinger
24th Mar - Laurence Ferlighetti
15th July - Iris Murdoch
16th Oct - Kathleen Winsor
22nd Oct - Doris Lessing

1931
6th Jan - E.L. Doctrow
27th Jan - Mordecai Richler
18th Feb - Toni Morrison
7th July - David Eddings
10th July - Alice Munro
15th July - Clive Cussler
22 Sept - Fay Weldon
19th Oct - John le Carre

1943
4th Jan - Doris Kearns Goodwin
2nd Mar - Peter Straub
13th Sept - Mildred D. Taylor
26th Nov - Marilynne Robinson

1955
13th Jan - Jay McInerney
27th Jan - Alexander Stuart
8th Feb - John Grisham
8th Apr - Barbara Kingsolver
1st July - Lisa Scottoline
2nd Aug - Caleb Carr

Please be careful of your Chinese Zodiac Year. For my specific year, I must select someone born between the 9th of February and the 29th of January, if I am understanding the task correctly. For example, J.D. Salinger was born on the first of January, 1919 which, technically, makes him a rat, not a sheep/goat/ram. I have only investigated my own birth year, so don't know how the other years will span.

I hope this is of help to people.

Cheers and happy hunting!! :)

Petra wrote: "Jessy wrote: "Here are ones for the Dog people out there.

Jenn Ashworth
Jessica Verday
R A Salvatore

This is ones I recognized back through '46."

Christopher Moore was also born in the Year of the Dog, 1946..."


There must be 2 Christopher Moores. I was thinking of the author of Fool, who was born in 1957, not '46. I don't know who the '46 Moore is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of...

This is the page that was incredibly helpful to me when I was making my list. Some of the lists of authors (ie. the Young Adult list) don't have years beside the names, but many of the other lists do...and from there it's pretty easy to check the month.

Ms Anderson wrote: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of... This is the page that was incredibly helpful to me when I was making my list."

Also, if you just go to Wikipedia and type in any year in the search box on the left of the screen, it will pull up the entry for that year. Each year contains, as one component of the entry, events, including births of people of note, including authors. That's how I came up with choices for the Sheep/Goat/Ram years.

Petra wrote: "Christopher Moore was also born in the Year of the Dog, 1946..."

There must be 2 Christopher Moores. I was thinking of the author of Fool, who was born in 1957, not '46. I don't know who the '46 Moore is. .."


Okay, I'm confused. I got the info from this site: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/years/ , which lists Christopher Moore (author of Fool) as being born in 1946. Other sites says he's born in 1957. Does anyone know which is true?

Kathryn wrote: "I only wrote down these for the year of the dragon...
Libba Bray
Christopher Moore
Dan Brown"


There seems to be some discrepancy about Christopher Moore. I hope we can clear it up. Some sites say he was born in 1946 (Year of the Dog).

I like my Horse author - Marion Zimmer Bradley !!! I never read her Darkover series so I'll try the first one. But I have read all her other books.

Hello!

Here is the Wikipedia link for Christopher Moore (he of Fluke, Fool, You Suck, etc. fame), born in 1957, Toledo, Ohio.

And then there is this link to another Christopher Moore, born 1946 (nothing more specific than that. If you click on the word "books" beside his name, you will get the full list of titles, but just in case, I will paste it here:

MOORE, CHRISTOPHER (G.) (1946- ) (stories) (assoc.)

* * *Bloodsucking Fiends (Simon & Schuster 0-684-81097-2, Sep ’95 [Aug ’95:], $23.00, 300pp, hc) Satirical vampire novel set in San Francisco.
* * _Bloodsucking Fiends (Black Swan 0-552-99596-7, Dec ’95, £5.99, 317pp, tp, cover by Kevin Hauff) Reprint (Simon & Schuster 1995) humorous literary vampire novel. A female victim must learn the powers of a vampire, without guidance. [First U.K. edition:]
* * _Bloodsucking Fiends (Avon 0-380-72813-3, Oct ’96 [Sep ’96:], $12.00, 300pp, tp, cover by Michael McGurl) Reprint (Simon & Schuster 1995) satirical vampire novel set in San Francisco.
* * *Coyote Blue (Simon & Schuster 0-671-88188-4, Feb ’94 [Jan ’94:], $21.00, 303pp, hc, cover by Ruth Marten) Fantasy novel about two would-be lovers under the spell of Coyote, the Native American trickster god.
* * _Coyote Blue (Avon 0-380-72523-1, Jul ’95 [Jun ’95:], $10.00, 303pp, tp, cover by Michael McGurl) Reprint (Simon & Schuster 1994) satirical fantasy novel about two lovers dogged by the Native American trickster god, Coyote.
* * *Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Avon 0-380-97505-X, Aug ’97 [Jul ’97:], $23.00, 325pp, hc, cover by Michael McGurl) Gonzo quasi-fantasy novel. A pilot works for a mysterious doctor on a very strange remote Pacific island.
* * _Island of the Sequined Love Nun (Avon Bard 0-380-79273-7, May ’98 [Apr ’98:], $6.99, 407pp, pb, cover by Michael McGurl) Reprint (Avon 1997) humorous magical realist/quasi-fantasy novel.
* * *Practical Demonkeeping (Heinemann 0-434-47551-3, Jan ’92, £7.99, 248pp, tp, cover by Josh Kirby) Fantasy novel about a modern-day Californian with a tame demon. Simultaneous with the American (St. Martin’s) edition.
* * *Practical Demonkeeping (St. Martin’s 0-312-07069-1, Jan ’92, $18.95, 243pp, hc, cover by Darryl Zudeck) Comic dark fantasy of a battle of wits and wonders between a demon and a djinn in a small California town. A first novel.
* * _Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors (SFBC #19523, Mar ’92, $8.98, 243pp, hc, cover by Darryl Zudeck) Reprint (St. Martin’s; Heinemann 1992) comic dark fantasy of a battle of wits and wonders between a demon and a djinn in a small California town. A first novel. Similar to the St. Martin’s edition except it lacks an ISBN and price. The SFBC number is on the back jacket.
* * _Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors (Mandarin 0-7493-1109-6, Mar ’93 [Feb ’93:], £4.99, 248pp, pb, cover by Josh Kirby) Reprint (St. Martin’s; Heinemann 1992) humorous fantasy novel.
* * _Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors (St. Martin’s 0-312-95146-9, Nov ’93 [Oct ’93:], $3.99, 243pp, pb) Reprint (St. Martin’s 1992) comic dark fantasy of a battle of wits and wonders between a demon and a djinn in a small California town.

Two different men, two different dates of birth. There is a third Christopher Moore too, but why muddy the waters any further, right? LOL!! I hope that helps.

Jennifer wrote: "Hello!

Here is the Wikipedia link for Christopher Moore (he of Fluke, Fool, You Suck, etc. fame), born in 1957, Toledo, Ohio.

And then there is this link to another Christopher Moore, born 1946 (..."

Nope, actually all of those books were written by one guy, lol. :o)

Christopher Moore's birth year is 1957. I even found a link to his blog on Powell's website, where he posted on Dec. 7, 2007:" I turned fifty a couple of months ago, and this is my first letter to Santa since I was five, so I have a long list..."

I think any webpage listing '46 as his birth year just happens to have an incorrect date.

Thanks! I thought they were one guy, too.
Okay, I'll look for another author then. I think I'll go with Ursela Hegi. I like her books. (hopefully, her birthday is listed correctly as 1946. LOL!)

Two I just found for the year of the Ox -

Tatiana De Rosnay (Sept. 28, 1961), who wrote Sarah's Key.

Douglas Coupland (Dec. 30, 1961), who wrote JPod A Novel, All Families Are Psychotic, Girlfriend in a Coma, Generation X Tales for an Accelerated Culture, etc.

I can't decide which I want to read! lol

Jennifer L. wrote: "Douglas Coupland (Dec. 30, 1961), who wrote JPod A Novel, [b..."

He's Canadian, too, so some of his books (I know Generation A) take place there...so you could read one of his for that and the other author for this task! ^_^

As it turns out Stephen King and I are part of the club featuring the year of the pig. *skips off to purchase Under the Dome*

For those that are year of the snake, Nicholas Sparks was also born in the year of the snake. I think I will read True Believer or The Last Song by Sparks.

"Please be careful of your Chinese Zodiac Year. For my specific year, I must select someone born between the 9th of February and the 29th of January, if I am understanding the task correctly. For example, J.D. Salinger was born on the first of January, 1919 which, technically, makes him a rat, not a sheep/goat/ram. I have only investigated my own birth year, so don't know how the other years will span."

I've found Salinger to be born in the year of the horse, actually. The year of the horse was February 11, 1918 - January 31, 1919, so his birthday, January 1, 1919, would fall between these dates.

Jamie wrote: ""Please be careful of your Chinese Zodiac Year. For my specific year, I must select someone born between the 9th of February and the 29th of January, if I am understanding the task correctly..."

Thanks for catching that Jamie!!

No problem! I just had to double-check that one, since I was planning on using a Salinger book for that task!

For Year of the Tiger, you can add Georgette Heyer - born August 1902. That's who I'm using!

Not many suggestions for us in the year of the pig, but I was happy to stumble on Stephen King because I have been meaning to read Duma Key.

Hugh Laurie is also year of the pig!

I am so confused about this, I am year of the tiger.

Sarah wrote: "I am so confused about this, I am year of the tiger."


Some authors born in the year of the Tiger:
Chuck Palahniuk
David Foster Wallace
Tracy Chevalier
Neal Shusterman
Judy Blume
Richard Matheson
Dario Fo
Anne McCaffrey
Harper Lee
John Knowles
John Fowles
Ralph Ellison
Octavio Paz
Julio Cortázar
Howard Fast
Patrick O'Brian
Marguerite Duras
Bernard Malamud
Dylan Thomas
John Steinbeck
Georgette Heyer