Know Your Author - Task nominations

[Lauren]

23. Read a novel by an author who studied literature at university or college.

[Claudia]

24. Read a book by an author who has a degree in something not related to writing/literature.

[Lu]

Oooh!

[Carolien]

@Lu That buddy read of Collapse could be useful for this one...

[Lu]

Definitely! I was thinking we start it 1 Nov anyway :)

[Lauren (Sugar & Snark)]

1 more- Come on we can do it!

[Jennifer]

read a book by an author who shares your birthday, it doesn't matter the year just the day

[Lauren (Sugar & Snark)]

Jennifer wrote: "read a book by an author who shares your birthday, it doesn't matter the year just the day"

wow that's going to be hard!!

[Lauren]

Lauren (Sugar & Snark) wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "read a book by an author who shares your birthday, it doesn't matter the year just the day"

wow that's going to be hard!!"

Wow, yeah, that's going to take a lot of googling and/or asking around to get even one option! And if you're lucky it'll be an author you actually want to read. A lot of authors don't share their birthdays, as I've noticed doing similar tasks.

[Jennifer]

Ok, I have been asked for a loophole if possible. I will give 3 possible options:
- Your birthday either has to be the date of birth, death, or other important event of the author OR the date on which the author published a book
- You take something important which happened on your birthday and find a book relating to that

Sites which can be used to assist for these include:
- http://www.historyorb.com/
- Library of Congress Authority Files (use the keyword option and type in the date) http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pw...
- http://on-this-day.com/
- or of course, use Wikipedia

Hope this helps.
For those who might not know, this is part of my daily job (I am a librarian in an Africana library looking at manuscripts and books)

[Lu]

Great change Jennifer! Thank you :) I at least have 2 fantastic authors that share my b-day, so will read them.

[Carolien]

Jennifer, must the event on your birthday be on the day and year or just the day of your birthday?

[Jennifer]

Just the day of your birthday

[Carolien]

Thanks otherwise I was doomed to the Vietnam war!

[Claudia]

Jennifer, I'm going to enjoy your task!

Yay, we're all done with nominations too.

[Barbara]

Lauren (Sugar & Snark) wrote: "21. Read a book by an author born in an exotic/unusual country.
So NOT born in America, Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia or Southern Africa and Holland/The Netherlands (to cover Barbara)"

Trust me, I know, I have lived here all my life: there is no way The Netherlands can be considered in any way exotic or unusual!

[Lauren (Sugar & Snark)]

Yeah I feel the same way about SA it is hard to see your homeland through the eyes of a tourist. Familiarity and "mystic" do not go well together :(

[Barbara]

I think I would still consider SA exotic, but the Netherlands is all flat and green pastures and cows. Nothing too exciting while you have lions and tigers and bears.

[Lauren (Sugar & Snark)]

Except there are no tigers or bears in Africa. Lol! But I get what your mean :D

[Barbara]

I was just quoting the Wizard of Oz.

He, even we have lions and tigers and bears, so you must have them too. I saw them only last week in the zoo. :)

[Carolien]

We had a hyena wandering the streets of suburban Johannesburg about a month ago (and a few years ago somebody lost a tiger for a while just outside Johannesburg). So we do have those and not always at the zoo!

[Lu]

I remember the lost tiger. He was missing and sighted by a lot of people for some time!

[Lauren (Sugar & Snark)]

Lu (Sugar & Snark) wrote: "I remember the lost tiger. He was missing and sighted by a lot of people for some time!"

Oh yeah I remember that too!

[Barbara]

I have a question about task 4. Read a book by an author that writes both historical and contemporary fiction.

Does that have to be realistic fiction or can it be paranormal too?

[Lauren]

My understanding was that it could be any genre, as long as at least one of the author's books was set in a historical period, and at least one in the present day or in the future/alternate time in the case of sci fi.

[Barbara]

Great. Thanks!