It’s that time of the year again! I have made it around the sun once more without being taken down by a large predator or other natural disaster, big or small. This is traditionally celebrated with burning an ever-increasing number of wax effigies atop a confection and ritual chanting, followed by uncovering offerings (as I understand it) but I’m not one for tradition most of the time.
So, as always, I’m going to make this whole birthday thing book-related. As an author, the biggest best thing in the world is noise. (Well, okay, let me qualify that with happy noise, but I’d say critical noise is also a positive, even if it stings.) So, just like I told my in-laws and husband, “I don’t need any presents.”
But presence? Every author loves presence.
Now, I’m not gonna be mister selfish here. After all, this is my blog, so chances are if you’re reading it, you probably already know me. But! There are people you know that I don’t know, and people you’ve read that I haven’t, so this’ll still work. Also, I’ll give out a prize, because birthday presents don’t totally suck, but I don’t need anything as I said, but I will totally give something away.
What am I talking about? My annual birthday request for you to write a review about a book you loved.
Now, it doesn’t have to feel like homework. Honest! In fact, I’ve said it a few times before, but a review can be three sentences. Here’s my go-to example, a quickie review of Jeffrey Ricker’s The Unwanted (you should read it, by the way):
The Three Sentence Review
So, for my birthday, grab a book you loved and throw a review out there somewhere into the world (again, totally doesn’t have to be one of mine). At an online e-tailer, at your library website, a tweet, a FB post, you name it. If writing even a three sentence review is too daunting, don’t worry. Go find a book you loved, see if there’s a great review out there, and boost the signal. Or go make a request for the title at your library. Or just link the publisher’s website link to the book with a little “I loved this!” Or, or, or. I promise, there’s ways to do this that require almost no effort. As someone who has just orbited the sun for the mumble-mumbleth time, I’m down with almost no effort.
No matter which way, once you’ve made noise today, link it back here for me to see (or on my FB page, or my Twitter feed, wherever you saw this post) and we can make some noise for some loved books today (March 5th, wherever you are). And I’ll write all those down and first thing tomorrow (March 6th) I’ll do a draw from all the people who made noise about books they loved they can have a copy of Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks or Of Echoes Born or any of the books I’ve put words in that they haven’t yet read (or have, hey, maybe they want another copy, that’s totally allowed).
Either way? Better than ritual chanting.
'Nathan Burgoine 