It may come to no surprise that I am interested in silly holiday celebrations. But where do I find all of these preposterous party-purposes?
Well.
To pull back the curtain a bit…
There’s this funny little website I use to look through all the different days of the year, called (shockingly enough) Days of the Year. It tells me every*I mean, I assume, it’s not like I check*Plus it doesn’t seem to care very much about actual “real” holidays that people actually celebrate but pssh we don’t need people or authority holiday for any day I want to look of. Now, these are all super official holidays™ that absolutely everyone™ knows. Like our beloved and much celebrated National Small Press Month. Whether these days are actually pertinent to us in New Zealand is irrelevant. For example, this lovely month of October is none other than Library Month*
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*In Canada…
Look, there’s 365 and a quarter days in a year, and each day is generally celebrating like 9ish different things, not even including special months. Not all of them are winners. In fact, there can often be a lot of overlap, like how August 8 is International Cat Day, which is separate from October 29: National Cat Day, or October 16: Global Cat Day.
I like to look through all these days to find exciting and strange holidays to celebrate fun things, but I end up finding patterns sometimes. There are a whole bunch of days that are just gimmes for a librarian writing about books. Days about books and libraries and whatnot. But if I just wrote for those holidays what would be the point? They’d all be the same. Instead, I decided to knock them all out. In the spirit of Canadian Library Month let’s have a look at all the generic book holidays!
January!
National Word Nerd Day (January 9th) | Days Of The Year
February!
National Library Lover’s Month (February 2024) | Days Of The Year
World Read Aloud Day (February 3rd) | Days Of The Year
National Read In The Bathtub Day (February 9th) | Days Of The Year
International Book Giving Day (February 14th) | Days Of The Year
March!
Return Borrowed Books Week (Mar 3rd to Mar 9th) | Days Of The Year
Read an E-Book Week (Mar 3rd to Mar 9th) | Days Of The Year
World Book Day (March 7th, 2024) | Days Of The Year
International Read To Me Day (March 19th) | Days Of The Year
April!
National Librarian Day (April 16th) | Days Of The Year
World Book Night (April 23rd) | Days Of The Year
English Language Day (April 23rd) | Days Of The Year
National Tell A Story Day (April 27th) | Days Of The Year
May!
National Get Caught Reading Month (May 2023) | Days Of The Year
June!
Audiobook Month (June 2023) | Days Of The Year
July!
Paperback Book Day (July 30th) | Days Of The Year
August!
Blogger Day (August 5th) | Days Of The Year
National Book Lovers Day (August 9th) | Days Of The Year
September!
National Read a Book Day (September 6th) | Days Of The Year
National Buy a Book Day (September 7th) | Days Of The Year
International Literacy Day (September 8th) | Days Of The Year
Read An Ebook Day (September 18th) | Days Of The Year
National Library Card Sign-up Month (September 2023) | Days Of The Year
Read A New Book Month (September 2023) | Days Of The Year
October!
Canadian Library Month (October 2023) | Days Of The Year
✨Nothing✨
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Nothing!
The gall! I bet they’re just mad because despite being named the 9th and 10th month (novem means 9 and decem means 10 in Latin) they’re the 11th and 12th months. Do they think they’re better than us? BAH! We don’t need them!
ahem
Anyway.
To lean into this generic bookishness, I have gathered some anthologies together for your reading pleasure. A grand variety of different genres and types of story. So go ahead and read, before the baleful November and December rains its fury.
A tyranny of petticoats : 15 stories of belles, bank robbers & other badass girls
“From pirate ships off the coast of the Carolinas to the peace, love, and protests of 1960s Chicago, take a thrill ride through history with American girls charting their own course. They are monsters and mediums, bodyguards and barkeeps, screenwriters and schoolteachers, heiresses and hobos. They’re making their own way in often-hostile lands, using every weapon in their arsenals, facing down murderers and marriage proposals. And they all have a story to tell.” (Catalogue)
Willful impropriety : 13 tales of society, scandal, and romance
“The Season has finally arrived, filled with the magnificent balls, scandalous gossip, and clandestine romances that every lord and lady in good society has come to expect. But far within the walls of lavish estates and in the dark corners of the city lies a world that the aristocracy dares not touch, with rules and risks that glamour cannot overpower. Yet true love has no boundaries, and heiresses and street thieves alike must use their savvy and strength to create new beginnings and happily-ever-afters. Sometimes luck is enough, but every once in a while, a touch of magic may be needed.” (Catalogue)
That stubborn seed of hope : stories / Falkner, Brian
“A boy helps his sister disguise her birthmark on her first day of school. A seventeen-year-old awakens to find himself trapped in an elderly body. A teenage girl discovers her boyfriend has a life-threatening virus the day after they share their first kiss. A high school student tries to communicate to his hospitalised brother who is in a vegetative state. Brian Falkner serves up bite-sized tales of fear – fear of rejection, fear of dying, fear of disease, fear of the unknown, fear of exclusion, fear of being caught and fear of embarrassment – showing how that stubborn seed of hope hungers our darkest moments.” (Catalogue)
Who done it? : investigation of murder most foul
“When over eighty prominent children’s authors learn they are suspects in the murder of despicable book editor Herman Mildew, they provide less-than-credible alibis.” (Catalogue)
Rags & bones : new twists on timeless tales
“In this collection, award-winning and bestselling authors reimagine their favorite classic stories, the ones that have inspired, awed, and enraged them, the ones that have become ingrained in modern culture, and the ones that have been too long overlooked.” (Catalogue)
Tales from the inner city / Tan, Shaun
“World-renowned artist Shaun Tan applies his unique imagination to a reflection on the nature of humans and animals, and our urban coexistence. From crocodile to frog, tiger to bee, this is a dark and surreal exploration of the perennial love and destruction we feel and inflict – of how animals can save us, and how our lives are forever entwined, for better or for worse.” (Catalogue)
Athletic Shorts / Crutcher, Chris
“These six powerful short stories chronicle bits of the lives of characters, major and minor, who have walked the rugged terrain of Chris Crutcher’s earlier works. They also introduce some new and unforgettable personalities who may well be heard from again in future books. As with all Crutcher’s work, these are stories about athletes, and yet they are not sport stories. They are tales of love and death, bigotry and heroism, of real people doing their best even when that best isn’t very good. Crutcher’s straightforward style and total honesty have earned him an admiring audience and made readers of many nonreaders.” (Catalogue)
Off the map / Gardner, Scot
“Our home town. Sometimes it feels like the centre of the universe, sometimes it’s the bum-end of nowhere. We are her sons and daughters. These are our triumphs and our heartaches, our fears and hopes for a better life. Getting lost, falling in love, pushing boundaries, exploring the world – powerfully honest stories to make you think and feel, from the award-winning author of The Dead I Know and Changing Gear.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Sixteen / McCafferty, Megan
“Dating! Drama! Driving!Remember what it was like to be sixteen? Whether it was the year your teeth were finally free of braces or the year you were discovered by the opposite sex, that magical, mystical age is something you will never forget. Sixteen: Stories About That Sweet and Bitter Birthday is a compilation of short stories inspired by all the angst, melodrama, and wonderment of being sixteen. Sarah Dessen’s “Infinity” is about a girl confronting two major milestones: getting her driver’s license and losing her virginity. The Dead Girls in Jacqueline Woodson’s “Nebraska 99” have already decided to “do it” and must now cope with being teenage mothers. And Carolyn Mackler’s “Mona Lisa, Jesus, Chad, and Me” explores whether friendship can survive when partying and prayer clash.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The realm of possibility / Levithan, David
“A variety of students at the same high school describe their ideas, experiences, and relationships in a series of interconnected free verse stories.” (Catalogue)
Unnatural creatures
“Unnatural Creatures is a collection of short stories about the fantastical things that exist only in our minds–collected and introduced by beloved New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman. The sixteen stories gathered by Gaiman, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, range from the whimsical to the terrifying. Magical creatures from the werewolf, to the sunbird, to beings never before classified will thrill, delight, and quite possibly unnerve you in tales by E. Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries. Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.” (Catalogue)
Mel
November is National Novel Writing Month!
Joey Jonouchi
Mīharo! Great point Mel, we’ve added this wonderful bookish celebration to the list!
J'Shuall of Jackanapery
Now, to be technical (because of course we have to be technical when correcting) I specified “Generic Book Days”. I promise you, I did not forget about NaNoWriMo, but NaNoWriMo is too interesting to fall under the umbrella of this blog. In fact, you should expect a post for NaNoWriMo coming this NaNoWriMo. Also, from this particular list I neglected other more writerly holidays, focusing on the reading side.
That all said, thanks for reading!