A Birthday and a Book Promotion

First of all, there is currently a big multi-author speculative fiction cross promotion going on. Over sixty authors are involved and all books are 99 cents. There is a list of all participating books here and if you scroll down, you may also find a title you recognise.

What is more, April 18 is my birthday. I celebrated relatively low-key, since the long Easter weekend is only just over. And besides, I already went on a roadtrip with lunch at a nice restaurant yesterday, so going out for lunch or dinner again today felt like overkill. I’ll do that sometime next week, when things have calmed down a little.

I also didn’t feel like making an elaborate meal like sailor’s curry directly after a holiday weekend with several days of elaborate food. Besides, the curry will taste just as good next weekend or the one after.

I did watch a feel-good film though – Guardians of Galaxy, Vol. 1 – in preparation for Vol. 2, which will hit our theatres next week. I do find it interesting that we usually get the Marvel movies about a week or so before the US these days. I guess we are a test market for Marvel.

Though I did have visitors today – my parents, of course, as well as a neighbour. I also had a phonecall from a former student as well as a bunch of congratulations via e-mail and social media. In fact, I have noticed that I’m getting steadily fewer birthday cards, but more e-mail and social media congratulations. And given the cost of postage and also of cards, I find that I send fewer cards myself.

However, I did get some presents, so take a look:

Wrapped birthday presents and a card.

And here are the unwrapped presents. Lots of lovely books and coincidentally all of them by women.

My neighbour also brought me a bottle of wine, which is not in the photo.

If you’re wondering about the presence of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, when the Oktober Daye books were nominated for the best series Hugo, I checked my collection and noticed to my own surprise that though I had read some books in the series, I didn’t own the first book for some reason. So I put it on my wishlist and it promptly showed up for my birthday.