When the Book You Need Isn’t the One You (Think You) Want
October 11, 2009
About two months ago a book showed up in my post office box. It was sent out by one of the publishers who regularly send review copies. 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life was initially dismissed. BiblioBuffet does not review self-help books, and this one seemed to fit loosely into that genre. That is a genre I despise, and the reason stems primarily from its focus of telling women what is wrong, why they are the ones to fix it, and how to fix it. Never mind what “it” is. It could in fact be anything from a litter box problem to world peace. But because women are the majority of book buyers, and because an uncertain self-esteem exists in too many women the authors find ways to make whatever they want to address “a woman’s problem” that—viola!—can be solved by buying their book. So I got rid of it.
I resent the hell out of that so when another copy of the same book arrived about ten days ago I glanced it over dismissively. Still I didn’t toss it out nor did I offer it to anyone. Sometimes it disappeared under other books, other times it was temporarily banished to the floor because my cats wanted to sit next to me. But it never moved far. And I began to wonder why. I’m still not sure why I kept it but yesterday, for reasons also unknown, I opened it up to read a few pages. Then a few more. And more.
As with many people I am undergoing some personal difficulties. It can be a struggle to keep a positive attitude at times they feel overwhelming. I can’t remember the first time but at some point something (curiosity?) overcame my distaste and I opened the book long enough to discover the author, Cami Walker, has multiple sclerosis. It was that diagnosis, one month after her wedding day, that sent her spinning into depression and anger before, in desperation, receiving an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman:
“Cami, I think you need to stop thinking about yourself.”
For a few seconds, I’m shocked silent. I imagine Mbali on the other end of the phone, sitting near her unique altar, her silver hair and bronze skin reflecting in the soft light of her apartment. She’s probably wearing one of the beautiful, colorful necklaces she makes and smiling at my stunned reaction.
“Thinking about myself?” I howl. I start in on her about what a wreck I ma, what a wreck my body is, telling her I don’t have room to think about anything except myself right now.
“I know, that’s the problem,” she says. “If you spend all of your time and energy focusing on your pain, you’re feeding the disease. You’re making it worse by putting all of your attention there.”
I absorb this information quietly.
“Cami,” she says, her voice soft and soothing but her words hitting me hard, “you are falling deeper and deeper into a black hole. I’m going to give you a tool to help you dig yourself out.”
“What should I do?” I ask.
“I have a prescription for you. I want you to give away 29 gifts in 29 days.”
This past Friday I was browsing CraigsList as I often do. Even when not looking for anything in particular I like the sense that reading various ads gives me about my community. What people are feeling and experiencing can be read through classified advertising, more so than any form of news. One of the areas I check is “Housing Wanted” because, I will admit, sometimes the desperation of students can come out in amusing ways. But one ad was positively chilling. Though the words were never spoken it was easy to read that the woman who placed it was escaping that day from an abusive home situation, coming back to Santa Barbara and desperately seeking a place to stay. Her arrangements had fallen through that morning and she could not change her flight. She and her cat were arriving that night with, literally, no place to stay and very little money.
I read and reread that ad and in the end took a chance. I emailed her my work phone number and told her I would offer her a temporary home for a few days. It was a very hectic Friday and a scary one for me. Had I fallen for some scam artist? Had I read hope and fear into an ad that was in reality a dangerous swindle or worse? By the time she arrived at 10:00 pm (two hours later than predicted) I was exhausted from worry and ready to turn her away at the door.
But I didn’t. She came in, teary and grateful. I had been the only one to answer her ad. We settled in for the night and on Saturday I learned some of the details. They are horrific. She had reason to be scared. But she is also very brave, and in less than two days has managed to find a permanent home to share and has a job interview lined up. I am proud of her, and I am proud of me. I believed and I helped. Simply put, I made a difference.
By tomorrow I will have my place back again, my cats will no longer be hissing at her cat, and my favored silence will reign once again. But there will be a change. I began my “29 gifts” in “29 days” the night of her arrival. And perhaps I have gained just a bit more tolerance for books that may be more than what I initially perceive them to be. I am glad the book gave me a second chance.
As for Cami, she is still in physical pain but she has taken those initial steps and made larger ones. Her website—the 29-Day Giving Challenge—is thriving. Whether or not I will join is debatable since I am not a joiner of groups by nature. But whether I do or not this book, the one I had rejected out of hand and that had the temerity to show up again, is now officially and wholeheartedly a part of my permanent library—and my heart.
Upcoming Book Festivals:
Attention book lovers in Indiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Ohio, Virginia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina: it’s book festival time for you!
Mystery lovers, rejoice. Your special fan festival, Bouchercon, arrives beginning Thursday, October 15 and running through Sunday, October 18 in Indianapolis, Indiana. This four-day meeting includes panel discussions, lectures, and other presentations by mystery writers and experts on the genre, covering all aspects of mystery fiction, thrillers, detective stories, suspense novels, and more. And, for the first time, Bouchercon will also include special programming for young adults and children.
Attendees will have a lot of program choices and plenty of time to get their books signed during the day. There are also a number of special events among them a pre-conference trip to the Lilly Library, the opportunity to see an original, handwritten manuscript of a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to nominate and vote on the Anthony Awards, and an auction where attendees can bid on the chance to make a cameo appearance in forthcoming books by bestselling writers. The basic registration fee is $150, though some events are additional, and there are reduced fees for students and families attending the children’s programming only, as well as single-day registrations.
On October 16-17, Clarksdale, Mississippi, will play host to the Tennessee Williams Festival, which is where the great playwright and writer spent his childhood. The city is justifiably proud of its influence, and it celebrates that with lectures, live drama, readings, panels, (one-act) porch plays, films, musical performances, dramatizations, and an organ recital along with receptions and dinners are the highlights of this not-to-be-missed festival.
This year, the Georgia Literary Festival will be appearing in Rome (its first time in northwest Georgia) on October 17. About three dozen writers including Raymond L. Atkins and Calder Willingham, Jeanne Braselton, Anthony Grooms, and Melanie Sumner will be appearing to read and sign books from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.
From 9:00 am to 5:30 pm on October 17, the town of Providence will be hosting the Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books & Authors at Lincoln School. Among the events are appearances a dozen children’s books authors and illustrators including Christopher Paul Curtis, Etinne Delesset, and Lois Lowry. There will also be a performance by Elizabeth Mitchell, bookmaking and crafts, and an optional lunch.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is also celebrating the book with the Louisiana Book Festival on October 17. Come one, come all to this event where more than 190 authors, poets, and scholars will presents readings or book talks, or participate in panel presentations in three locations. There will also be book signing sessions, Exhibitors Row (with more than 65 vendors), plenty of food and music, special events for children and teens, Wordshops (for writers), an Authors Party, and the presentation of the Louisiana Writer Award.
Books by the Banks will be held from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on October 17 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Attendees will find a variety of activities: panel discussions, author sessions, cooking demonstrations, a Kids’ Corner, and more than eighty authors.
It’s another Book ‘Em: Buy a Book and Stop a Crook, this time in Waynesboro, Virginia on October 17. Four dozen authors are appearing and many more are donating signed copies of their books to help the Book ’Em Foundation raise awareness of the link that exists between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates, and to increase literacy rates, and decrease crime rates.
Northampton, Massachusetts will be hosting the Pioneer Valley Book & Ephemera Fair on October 18 at the Smith Vocational School. If you love old, rare, and collectible books and related ephemera do go. These are wonderful even if you don’t buy anything.
Just a reminder that the Novello Festival of Reading, which began on September 26 continues through October 31 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Upcoming events include the Novello Children’s Author Event on Tuesday, October 13; Carolina Writers’ Night on Wednesday, October 14; A Story, Story Night with Jim Weiss on Friday, October 16; A Novello Evening with Clyde Edgerton ($35); and A Novello Morning with Genealogist Margaret M. Hofman.
The Pub House:
Pangaea is an independent house that “diverse regions of nature, paths of human understanding and world cultures in transition.” Their books cover subjects as diverse as the Mississippi River to the street children of Guatemala. Among their titles are a lovely children’s book with a choice of English, Spanish, or bilingual: Mi Isla Y Yo / My Island & I (“Have you ever felt like an island? . . . You and Puerto Rico are one and the same, along with the sea so blue, the sailing clouds, the whirling moon, the golden sun. Rainbows, giant trees, tiny tiny frogs and agile lizards are not just neighbors, but real friends and real family.”), and Natural Cuba / Cuba Natural, a bilingual book that is the first one to document the island’s and its archipelago’s natural history and its rich flora and fauna (including the world’s smallest bird, painted land snails and rare butterflies and orchids).
Of Interest:
The making of books yesterday and today is the subject of these two YouTube videos. The , made in 1947, is by Encyclopedia Britannica. Though a bit quaint and simplistic—leaving out the roles of literary agents, editors, and agents—its purpose is to show how a book was created from a manuscript when printing plates rather than computers made books. The shows how a book is made with modern computerized technology. Certainly things have changed a lot, but it is also a bit surprising how much is the same.
This Week . . .
I want to introduce you to an online exhibition from the New York Public Library called “From Revolution to Republic in Prints and Drawings.” It actually occurred in 2007, but thanks to the Internet is still available to anyone wishing to partake of the library’s collection of early American prints and drawings. Using them, the exhibition attempts to “examine issues in American history and the tradition of printmaking,” that is, they are primarily firsthand visual accounts of major battles and scenes (often by British or American soldiers who personally participated in the scenes they depict) of the early Revolutionary period.
Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
Lauren
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