The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

10.9 Earth Signs: Read an author who was born under an Earth sign. For the purposes of this task, we will use the following dates: Capricorn (December 22 - January 19), Taurus (April 20 - May 20), or Virgo (August 23 - September 22). Required: Provide the author's birthdate when posting. If Goodreads does not list the author's birthdate, you must provide a link to that information for verification in order to get credit for this task. These websites might help: Author Birthday, Famous Author's Birthdays

I'm going sailing this weekend. Instead of making everyone wait until Monday to see the 10 pointers, the other moderators and I decided to give you a sneak peek of the 5/10/15 pointers instead. The 5 pointers and 15 pointers will make their appearance, as scheduled, on Saturday. In the meantime, have some fun planning your Winter 10 pointers! If you have questions about this task feel free to ask about it here, but it may be Monday before you get an answer.

I was quite surprised that so many authors on my tbr shelf shared the same birthday (01/01).
But then started wondering there might be a problem. My guess is that when someone submits an author's birth year, the website will automatically add January 1st to have a full birth date.

I might be wrong but just in case be careful when Goodreads states January 1st as their birthday.

Mabeelle wrote: "I was quite surprised that so many authors on my tbr shelf shared the same birthday (01/01).
But then started wondering there might be a problem. My guess is that when someone submits an author's ..."

I believe that you are correct that January 1 is a default date.

Oh great, there go all my options so far. I've just spent an hour going through ten pages of my tbr and now I can't use them. How are we to tell what is a genuine birth date for January 1st and what is default?

chucklesthescot wrote: "Oh great, there go all my options so far. I've just spent an hour going through ten pages of my tbr and now I can't use them. How are we to tell what is a genuine birth date for January 1st and wha..."

Have you looked at either of the lists provided in the task description? I looked at the first list, and it's very easy to pull up the relevant months and take a look at who's listed in the appropriate date range - I found lots and lots of options.

I'm sure Kristi will give a definitive answer on this when she gets back on Monday.

These lists are great for readers who like crime, classics and general fiction but for urban fantasy fans like me, it's not really helpful. Not your fault, just one of those things! I'll have to go back to looking up the UF writers manually when I have more time.

For everyone having trouble, wikipedia often has the birthdays of authors, particularly those who've written a lot of books or have bestselling novels. If you've got a few favourite authors perhaps do a quick wiki search and see what you can come up with.

I have a list that I have done for the Happy Birthday site. If I can just figure out how to get them from my spreadsheet, your are welcome to use that.

I have found some I can maybe use:

Rachel Caine:April 27th
Eoin Colfer:May 14th
Jeffery Deaver:May 6th
Philippa Gregory:Jan 9th
Alyxandra Harvey:Dec 26th
Jean Plaidy:Sep 1st

if anyone has read the beekeeper's apprentice (which is a GR) and wants to read another in the series - the author's birthday fits in september

@Donna Jo - could you post the spreadsheetin googledocs and share it

Stephen King is 9/21. I was excited about that. :)

ohh, i do have the new stephen king on the pile...hmmm

Dee wrote: "ohh, i do have the new stephen king on the pile...hmmm"

Me too, which is why I was so excited to find he was an earth baby. :)

Earth baby lol

but its soo long...lol! I can do the audiobook of the king one...decsions decisions ;)

Anomander wrote: "Earth baby lol"

Ha ha. You know, as opposed to a non-earth baby. >.<

A few popular Authors I've found that fit this task:

Scott Westerfeld - 5 May
Agatha Christie - 15 Sept
Haruki Murakami - 12 Jan

Janet Evanovich- April 22
Jennifer Echols- Sept. 15

Dee wrote:

@Donna Jo - could you post the spreadsheetin googled..."

Dee, I would, but I just compared my list with the Authers one and everyone on my list is covered there.

There are a lot of birthdays listed in this old help thread Eye of the Tiger. The focus of the task was different, but someone may find something. I would suggest double-checking the dates- info might have been updated sine 2009

A couple more popular authors:

David Sedaris - Dec 27
JRR Tolkien - Jan 3
Roald Dahl - Sept 13
Jennifer Crusie - Sept 17
Diana Gabaldon - Jan 9
Sue Grafton - April 24

Some authors I found on my TBR:

Nicholas Sparks- 12/31
Frewin Jones- 4/30
Scott Westerfeld- 5/5
Jodi Picoult- 5/19
Stephenie Meyer- 12/24
Victoria Laurie- 12/29
Sarah Mlynowski- 1/4

Lionel Shriver 5/18
Ray Bradbury 8/22
Robert A Heinlein 5/8
J.D. Salinger 1/1
Jorge Luis Borges 8/24
Susan Sontag 1/16
Mikhail Bulgakov 5/15
Jennifer Egan 9/6

if the authors GR page (and they are a GR author) has a specific date are we good to go with that - T.J. Klune - has his listed as May 20 which is right on the cusp, so wanted to check...thanks!

Dee wrote: "if the authors GR page (and they are a GR author) has a specific date are we good to go with that - T.J. Klune - has his listed as May 20 which is right on the cusp, so wanted to c..."

Yep, specific dates work and so does May 20th. You're good!

Jeffery Deaver was born 6th May

thanks! I actually read the book for another task and then saw his birthday and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up

for the life of me, I can't find out Avi Steinberg's birthdate. I have tried everywhere! Every site wants to tell me WHERE he was born (Jerusalem), just not the date!! Any suggestions??

J.R.R. Tolkien, born Jan 3rd should work, right?

Cindie wrote: "for the life of me, I can't find out Avi Steinberg's birthdate. I have tried everywhere! Every site wants to tell me WHERE he was born (Jerusalem), just not the date!! Any suggestions??"

Sorry, Cindie, I can't find it either. Anyone else?

Sarah wrote: "J.R.R. Tolkien, born Jan 3rd should work, right?"

January 3rd works.