Last year my friends and I had the chance to check out a couple page-a-day calendars sent to me by Workman Publishing. Among them were the A year of Ghost Stories and A Year of True Crime calendars. We looked over them for a bit and then in February of last year I wrote some initial impressions. Now its December so we’ve been using them for a year and we’ve almost reached the end(s)!
Overall, the experience has been very positive. So much so that we’ve decided to check them both out again in 2023! The Year of True Crime calendar was loved that the friend who kept that one in her office actually kept each of the days she tore off tucked away in her desk to revisit and re-read later on for the first few months. That’s how much she enjoyed this calendar!
So what do you get from A Year of Ghost Stories and A Year of True Crime?
In a Year of Ghost Stories you’re treated to spooky stories, facts, and trivia throughout the year. The topics range from haunted locations to morbid practices and more. There are also lists of movies and books to check out and quizzes to challenge your pre-existing paranormal prowess. Some of the stories take more than one day to tell but for the most part you’ll get something new and fun each day.
From a cursory overview, the content in the 2023 calendar appears to be mostly (if not completely) different than last year so if you’ve already checked this one out it looks like there’s plenty of unique content for you to explore. Our only real complaint is that the calendar sleeps on some big moments throughout the year – namely Halloween, Friday the 13th, and such. Instead of giving us some of the spookiest stories on those dates often it’s just another day or we get just a tidbit about the history of the day. If we had our day, we’d be spooked out of our minds on those days! Other than that, though, we really enjoyed the calendar in 2022 and look forward to a year of more spooky tales in 2023!
In a Year of True Crime you may expect to get mostly stories of gruesome murders and grisly crimes. Which, to be fair, you get plenty of if you’re truly a true crime aficionado. But this calendar can be surprisingly a lot more than just that at times. Intermingled in between stories of survivors of violent crimes and court cases you’ll find the occasional commentary on prison reform and youth sentencing as well as quotes regarding all aspects of our criminal justice system.
If you like true crime I cannot recommend this calendar enough because there are tons of stories that you might have heard of before but plenty that will be brand new to you. Many of the stories are contemporary with updates from 2020 and 2021 (so definitely things that didn’t quite make it in time for earlier versions). From a cursory view of the 2023 calendar there was only one page that stuck out as familiar from the 2022 calendar and it was a criminal justice fact that’s actually probably important for people to know. So I’m pretty confident that fans from last year don’t need to worry about much (if any) repetition this year!
While you can’t go wrong with either of these calendars depending on your particular interests, the Year of True Crime page-a-day calendar definitely gets our vote for best pick of the two. Everyone I’ve shown it to has enjoyed it and found it engaging which says a lot about it’s appeal. Definitely worth checking out!
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