This year’s challenge is simple, just pick an author that was born in that month and read a piece of their work. I told you, easy!
Obviously, there are hundreds of books and authors to choose from so we’ve just listed a few for March in case you’re in need of inspiration.
William Boyd – Any Human Heart
Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, but Logan Mountstuart’s – lived from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century – contains more than its fair share of both. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war and as an art-dealer in ’60s New York, Logan mixes with the movers and shakers of his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness.
Erica Jong – Fear of Flying
After five years, Isadora Wing has come to a crossroads in her marriage: Should she and her husband stay together or get divorced? Accompanying her husband to an analysts’ conference in Vienna, she ditches him and strikes out on her own, crisscrossing Europe in search of a man who can inspire uninhibited passion. But, as she comes to learn, liberation and happiness are not necessarily the same thing.
Alice Hoffman – Practical Magic
As children, sisters Gillian and Sally were forever outsiders in their small New England town, teased, taunted and shunned for the air of magic that seems to sparkle in the air around them. All Gillian and Sally ever wanted was to get away. And eventually they do – one marries, the other runs as far from home as she can manage.
Joy Fielding – She’s Not There
When Caroline Shipley’s two-year-old daughter disappeared, her whole world came crashing down. Now, fifteen years later, Caroline receives a phone call that could change everything. But could this stranger really be her daughter? And what happened all those years ago to make her vanish without a trace?
Jo Nesbo – Macbeth
He’s the best cop they’ve got. When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past. He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach. But a man like him won’t get to the top. Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his. Unless he kills for it.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love In The Time Of Cholera
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza’s impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Florentino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has loved none but Fermina. Having sworn his eternal love to her, he lives for the day when he can court her again.
Anna Sewell – Black Beauty
Black Beauty is the autobiography of a horse. This gentle book follows the life a well bred horse, from her early childhood in a pleasant meadow, through a myriad of owners-some kind and some cruel-until fate returns her to the meadow in which she was born.
Diana Mott Davidson – Catering to Nobody
Catering a wake is not Goldy’s idea of fun. Yet the Colorado caterer throws herself into preparing a savoury feast including Poached Salmon and Strawberry Shortcake Buffet designed to soothe forty mourners. And her culinary efforts seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered…until her ex-father-in-law Fritz Korman is struck down and Goldy is accused of adding poison to the menu!
Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.
John Irving – A Prayer For Owen Meany
Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend’s mother. Owen doesn’t believe in accidents; he believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is both extraordinary and terrifying.
Other suggestions from Cwts Club Discussion Group. include, Chuck Palahniuk, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand, John SteinBeck, Jules Verne, John Grisham, Gillian Flynn, Judy Blume, Victor Hugo, Helen Fielding, Anthony Burgess, James Joyce, Rainbow Rowell and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket).
Pick a book from our list, pop along to your local book shop or library or pick something that’s already in your TBR pile. What ever you decide, don’t forget to let us know what you’re reading over on Cwts Club Discussion Group.
Happy New Reading Year!
For Reading Addicts Reading Challenge 2024
