Inspired by Lianne @ Eclectic Tale’s birthday giveaway from last year.
This weekend is my champagne birthday! A champagne birthday occurs when you turn the age of your birthday. In my case, I am 25 on the 25th. I love the symmetry of 25. I feel like at 25, I’m starting to make good progress with my life. I am so happy with everything I’ve achieved thus far. A few highlights just from the recent years include road tripping to two Cloud Cult concerts, graduating from university with a specialization in a field I love, moving to Japan to teach for a year, WWOOFing in Ireland and New Zealand, and of course, keeping up with reading and writing this blog! I haven’t been home for my birthday the past two years (in fact, I am out of town this weekend so hopefully I’ve scheduled everything correctly :P). I am excited to celebrate with friends and family in the upcoming weeks.
To commemorate this occasion on the blog, I’ve decided to share 25 of my favourite books. These are all books that quickly came to mind when I asked myself, “What are some books I love? What are some great books I’ve read recently?” I created this list off the top of my head, without too much thinking, so this is by no means a definitive or prioritized list of my favourites. (Creating this list actually made me realize I should update my favourites shelf on Goodreads…) Links to reviews where applicable.
- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
- Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
- The Evolution of Alice by David A. Robertson
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
- The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket (you may choose any book in the series)
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielwzski
- In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente
- Inkspell by Cornelia Funke (review of Inkheart) (you may choose any book in the trilogy)
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Scar by China Mieville
- The Sight by David Clement-Davies
- The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- Unwind by Neal Shusterman (reviews of Unstrung | Undivided) (you may choose any book in the series)
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik
- When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
- White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
- The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
- The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
if you’ve got an opinion on any of these books, I’d love for you to share in the comments. Now onto the celebratory part – the giveaway! I am giving away one book of your choice from the above list (up to $25CAD value) via The Book Depository. The giveaway is open internationally to members of the online book community. A winner will be randomly selected and announced via Twitter on Friday 3 March (you do not need to have a Twitter account to participate). I will contact the winner via e-mail. They will have 48 hours to respond; otherwise I will draw again.
Have you ever celebrated a champagne birthday? Do any of my favourite coincide with yours? Which of these books are you curious about? Thanks for celebrating my birthday with me! 🙂
Happy birthday and happy champagne birthday!! I didn’t know that term – mine was when I was 3 years old! And I couldn’t even have champagne then – so unfair! 😉
Thank you for the giveaway! And hope you have a fabulous weekend!
Thanks, Athira! I suppose a champagne birthday only works well for a select number of birthdates, haha.
I hope you are enjoying your weekend away.? Happy Birthday. JJG
Happy Birthday! I haven’t even heard of a Champagne Birthday before… mine would’ve been when I was 4 lol. I’ve actually only read The Hobbit from that list.
I guess I got pretty lucky with a birthday on the 25th 😛 I hope you can find a new book to enjoy from my list!
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab,actually im about to start conjuring of light
I also loved that one – I’m hoping to tackle ACoL soon!
Woohoo, happy birthday! I’ve never heard of the “Champagne birthday” thing before, but it’s a lovely idea. Alas, mine has long since passed.
This is a great book list. Uprooted, The Hobbit, and ADSOM are favs of mine, too, but I’ve been meaning to read several of these others.
Thanks, Louise! I didn’t realize champagne birthday wasn’t so widely known…I’m lucky that mine works out so well, haha.
Hi Jenna! Happy birthday! I’m also a ’25 girl’ (25th of August) and the age of 25 was definitely my one of my favourite ages so, I am happy for you – besides also being rather envious of course (nope not gonna tell you. Let’s just say I’m on the wrong side of 40 now). And what a truly terrific idea this is. Picking a book poses a real dilemma though as I’m equally curious about White is For Witching (even more after reading your extraordinary review of it) as I am about The Girl Who Drank The Moon. You know what, why don’t you choose for me? Since you’re the birthday girl ‘n’ all 🙂
Well, enjoy your birthday/25th year! Dani
Happy birthday! I would like to read A Darker Shade of Magic and Uprooted. They seem interesting. 🙂
Good choices; those are two of my favourite fantasies!
Hope you had a lovely birthday, Jenna! ♥ I didn’t even know that there was a champagne birthday, but I guess mine was a long, long time ago… I was born on November 1, so… ahaha xD Anyway, my best wishes for you, celebrate these 25 years and continue making good progress in your life!! ^^
Great selection of books, btw! There are many that I haven’t had the chance to read yet, like Victoria Schwab’s book 🙂 I’d love to have and read A Darker Shade of Magic, so I’m crossing my fingers to be the lucky winner and get it 😀 Thanks for the giveaway, girl!
Thank-you, Antonela! I was actually out of town for my birthday and will be celebrating this weekend. I highly recommend ADSoM; Schwab’s books are addicting. 🙂
Then I wish you a wonderful weekend!! Hope you eat lots of cake! 😀 I’m gonna get to that book, sooner or later. I loved This Savage Song, so I’m pretty sure I’ll keep reading Schwab – I’m also really intrigued by The Archived 🙂
I just put a very large ice cream cake in my freezer…looking forward to enjoying it soon! 😉 The Archived was the first book by Schwab that I heard about, some time ago! I still haven’t read it, though, because I don’t want to be left hanging with the second book….
Happy birthday, Jenna! This is the first time I’ve heard of the champagne birthday concept and now I’m bummed I missed mine a few years ago.
I love your book list and it reminded me to pick up a few books I’ve been meaning to read for too long!
Thanks Lindsey!! I’ve received a lot of comments from people who hadn’t heard of a champagne birthday – I didn’t realize they weren’t well known. I hope you find some new favourites amongst those books 🙂
I know I’m way late, but I wanted to stop over here and wish you a happy belated birthday anyway! Hope you had a fantastic day!
Thank-you so much! ^^ I’m actually just having my celebration with friends today, so it feels like you’re not late 😉
So ridiculously late but happy birthday again! Interesting list of books that you put together for your 25th 🙂 I really want to re-read Burial Rites again sometime this year, it was such a well-written novel…and LOTR sometime this year…Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful celebration the previous weekend, happy birthday again! =D
Thanks very much, Lianne! 🙂 A re-read of Burial Rites sounds like a good idea, especially with the release date of The Good People being pushed back =.=