Last night I participated in World Book Night! WBN started in England in 2011. As the website describes it, it’s “an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading.” Each year, 30 books are selected by a panel. To volunteer as a book giver, you have to complete an online application explaining which book you want to give away, and why, and where you plan to give it away. If you’re selected, a box of about 20 books is sent to a local pickup location the week before World Book Night. Then, on the designated night, you go out into the community to give away the books, ideally to light readers or non-readers. This was the second WBN in America, and the second one I’ve participated in. Two for two!
I got my first choice for 2013: Bossypants by Tina Fey! Last year I handed out books sort of randomly, and this year I wanted to be more intentional. My original idea was to give away copies at a women’s shelter (Bossypants is such a great book for women). But when I started researching, I quickly realized that most women’s shelters are off the grid and don’t allow visitors. The Salvation Army has one downtown that’s not secret, but they never returned my call asking permission to give books there. Sooo I sent out some desperate e-mails to friends with charity connections. My eventual book giving location was Su Casa, a ministry to the Hispanic community that provides lots of English classes to non-native speakers. The evening class supervisor stood in the hall with me as students were arriving, and pointed out advanced students who would enjoy reading the book for practice. Many native speakers (instructors, I’m guessing) also took books, including several who indicated they didn’t read much, and one had a lot of questions about WBN. Yay!
I’ve already decided that next year, if I’m accepted, I’m going to give books away at a hospital. Probably in the ER. So remind me of this in 2014 when I’m worrying about where to go!
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Last night I met Sarah Dessen, one of my favorite authors!
The last book signing I went to at Booksellers at Laurelwood wasn’t well attended and no one had much to say. It was tense (for me). So I was happy to be among a crowd of enthusiastic fans there last night. Sarah was SO friendly and more extroverted than I had imagined. People asked a lot of good questions and her answers were very interesting. If you’re not familiar with her novels (the 11th one comes out soon), they’re each set in one of two fictional North Carolina towns that she made up. Each book stands alone, but old characters often make cameos in later books. (In a small town, they would run into each other eventually!) The characters are my favorite aspects of her books. Her main characters tend to be quieter types surrounded by quirky, more exciting friends, and I so relate to that. Based on what I know of Sarah, I feel a kinship with her and think that I would have a similar writing process if I ever write fiction.
This tour is for the paperback release of What Happened to Goodbye, so I brought my hardback for her to sign in case that was the only book allowed. But then I saw a few people with multiple books, so I ran out to the car and grabbed This Lullaby, which is my favorite. I had brought it just in case. (I seriously need to design a Spinnerbait T-shirt on Cafepress.) She signed both! I only got about 10 seconds with her, but she complimented my outfit and started talking about how stripes are so in now. Yay!
Also: I received a Netgalley e-mail this morning about the BEA Bloggers Conference. I always thought you had to be published or in the industry to go to BEA, and I’d also have assumed you need to be a Real Book Blogger to go to this, but ANYONE CAN GO. It’s in NYC at the end of May. That’s short notice, and I’d feel a little silly being there, but man am I tempted. Maybe next year.
Although I have as many pet sins and personal issues as everyone else, thankfulness has never been among my struggles. I believe that God made me with a genuinely thankful heart. Noticing and thanking Him and others for life’s blessings, big and small, has always come naturally to me. The line “I really appreciate it” is a running family joke, because I’ve been saying it since I was little. But somehow, somewhere in my childhood, I absorbed the message that if I wasn’t sufficiently thankful for good things – if I still complained, or expressed any disappointment – good things would be taken away from me, and I would be declared undeserving of those blessings. However I learned that lesson, it both amplified and twisted my thankful nature in ways that impact me daily as an adult.
When the book One Thousand Gifts came out a while back, the Christian blogosphere exploded with a fresh determination to be mindfully thankful All The Time. At first I thought it was a nice idea – it never hurts to focus on God’s provisions and what we do have instead of what we don’t. Many people continue to share lovely and refreshing thoughts about it all. But I noticed that for some, it was mutating into a collective condemnation of sharing or even thinking about things not grounded in positivity and thankfulness. Then I started to feel uneasy. This is why, although I bought One Thousand Gifts, I still haven’t read it. The atmosphere around the book is already touchy. I’m not sure what the book itself would do to me. When I was a little Hermione Granger growing up in public school, I sat through countless group scoldings. My teachers would rebuke the entire class for the bad behavior of a few, and I, the kid who didn’t need the lecture, would take it to heart and feel terrible. The Thankfulness Movement, as I think of it, has affected me exactly the same way. I was already there when it started. If I delved deeper into the philosophy, I would be driven to a kind of superstition, a constant cataloging of blessings lest I not be “thankful enough” (a crazy-making, non-quantifiable measure).
What upsets me most about this movement is the attitude that if you’re not actively thankful, you’re whining. God doesn’t like a whiner, and neither does anyone else. This viewpoint has conditioned me enough that I currently cannot even acknowledge negative things to myself without a positive counter. Even in my own head. I’ve realized that my mild depression this winter was (partly) me hitting my limit of thankful-ing myself out of the legitimate hurts and disappointments in my life. Being sad was bad enough, but I couldn’t even let myself be sad. I reached a point where I literally wanted to clap my hands over my ears and scream at the Thankfulness Voice, Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Yes, God has blessed me and provided for me in SO many ways. But acknowledging that I am lonely, that I often feel stuck and frustrated and purposeless, that I had imagined a very different 33-year-old life, does not negate my gratefulness for His blessings. It’s not an equation that I have to keep balanced or face mysterious consequences. I do not have to disclaim. I can say, “This sucks,” and leave it there without fearing others’ disapproval, or that God will take away my health, job, or family to teach me a lesson. It’s unhealthy to wallow in the negative, but it’s just as unhealthy to keep pushing reality away with forced, excessive thankfulness.
I can’t tell you how to achieve a perfect balance here, because I’m still trying to find it myself. Unfortunately, it’s not black or white, but another one of those gray, both-and things that require constant reevaluation.
12 Comments + Posted in: reflections, thankful
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish is Top Ten Wow Endings. A lot of my choices refer more to the wild ride of the whole book, not just the ending. Depending on how you look at it, I’m either blessed or cursed with a sort of naivete about story twists. I’m not totally oblivious, but I’m often blown away when others saw it coming!
1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn I fully agree with Bridget here! This isn’t my usual genre, but it took me on such a crazy ride, I couldn’t help but love it.
2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins The second book in the Hunger Games trilogy made me crazy. At multiple points I had to set it down, pace around, and tell someone, “This is crazy. You will not believe what’s happening right now. OMG.”
3. When The Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer This drum-corps drama wasn’t what I expected in any kind of way.
4. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare This new release with a controversial conclusion is a hot topic right now. Personally, I thought the ending was poignant and made sense.
5. Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares – Talk about kicking your fan base in the gut. (Still loved it, though.)
6. Rumors by Anna Godbersen – The second book in the underrated Luxe quadrilogy, this ended with a stunning development and a vow for justice that still makes me want to fistpump when I think about it. DON’T MESS WITH SISTERS!
7. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – No need to say more.
8. The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer – Well hello there, unexpected character!
9. Forget About It by Caprice Crane – This one skews more funny than intense. If you’ve never read any Caprice Crane, start ASAP!
10. Liar by Justine Larbalestier – An impressive novel that’s gone underrecognized. It’s kind of a tough read, but the best example of an unreliable narrator I’ve ever read.
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I spent this weekend in Nashville with my whole family! No, you’re not confused – my sister did move to Alabama several months ago. But my BIL Lance chaperoned a youth trip to Nashville this weekend, a teen talent thing held annually at all my siblings’ alma mater (I’m the outlier state school alum). So Debra and the baby joined him, my parents and I drove up from Memphis, and my brother came down from Indiana. It was exactly the sort of gathering I’d been afraid would rarely happen again, but God has been providing for us to be together. (Not to mention providing for Debra and Lance in all kinds of ways since the move. Testimony-worthy stuff.)
We spent a gorgeous afternoon hanging around on the Trevecca campus. I got a headache from all the pollen, but it was totally worth it!
My dad is too cool for school
