Always Thankful for Books
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Nov 26 2015
Happy Thanksgiving. Our offices will be closed today and tomorrow so we can spend Thanksgiving with those we are most thankful for (believe it or not we’re not spending it with each other).
None of us went into publishing because we just loved to read. We entered this field because we truly feel changed by some of the books we have read. We know how the words someone writes can impact one’s life and we want to be a part of that process, albeit a small part.
To celebrate Thanksgiving, some of us want to share with you those books we are thankful for.
Jessica Faust: will always be thankful for Little Women. It’s a book I’ve talked about many times over the years, but Jo was a true inspiration to me. In a time when women were expected to be and act a certain way, Jo broke barriers. She said no to Laurie when he asked her to marry him (breaking my heart) because she was a woman who wanted adventure and wasn’t afraid to say no. She set out to make her dreams happen and was fearless in doing so. I am thankful for all of those Little Women.
Beth Campbell: I’m thankful for any and all books that have gotten me through hard times, and there are definitely too many to list here. Today, I think I’m most thankful for The Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce. Previous Pierce series featured heroines that seemed untouchable for me as a child. Powerful and independent and awesome, but larger than life. In the Protector of the Small, heroine Keladry of Mindelan is big, kind, hardworking, and completely surrounded and upheld by her friends. I think I got my love for found families from this series, and I gained a new appreciation for finding support in friends instead of always forging ahead and fighting on your own. There’s no better time than Thanksgiving to be grateful for family and friends.
Moe Ferrara: I’m thankful for the books that can completely distract me and have me up until 3:00 AM reading because I can’t put it down (I’m looking at you, Avalon: The Return of King Arthur). I’m thankful for the books that change my way of thinking and challenge me to like topics/writing styles I wouldn’t usually read (I’m not an upmarket lit person, but I loved Letters from Skye). But mostly, I’m thankful for books that make me think of family members no longer with us. Which leaves me with one of my favorite reads — Jane Eyre. It was my grandmother’s favorite book and every time I pick it up, I think of the woman who has always been a source of support.
Kim Lionetti: I’m thankful for Snowfire, the first Phyllis Whitney book I ever read. It ignited my passion for books, but also created a special bond between my mother, my grandmother and me. I was just eleven years old when my grandmother passed away, and I wouldn’t start reading her collection of gothic romances until the following year, but she loved them so much that every time I immerse myself in one of those stories I feel more connected to her. I’ll always treasure that collection of novels — most of them gifts from one of us to another — and I’m thankful that they’re more than just books to me, but heirlooms.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at BookEnds!
It’s actually quite hard to choose a book I’m most thankful for. There are so many! But if I have to pick one I think I’ll have to choose Pollyanna. Her *glad game* resonated with me and I started playing it to after I read the book when I was about 8 years old. It taught me to look for the positive in any situation and that became a habit. As an adult it’s helped me through some tough times.
There are many more books I’m thankful for than not, but I’m taken by how many current novels are not pleasurable. However, everyone is different, and in my opinion, reading qualifies as the second most intimately subjective activity in which human beings routinely engage, even though enjoying a novel is a solo pastime and lovemaking is not (well, for most of us).
That thought was brought about by my failure to understand WHAT is in the mind of agents (present company excepted) and publishers who fall over novels that, in my opinion, are unreadable–not just poorly written, but unreadable–because, in the middle of an immensely enjoyable DeMille, I thought about the following novels: The Gin and Chowder Club (whose head are we in this paragraph, can someone please tell me?), The Girl On The Train (Really? This ugly stream-of-consciousness writing that goes nowhere?), Atonement (Okay, if not riveting, the book was at least readable in an airport {you can look around and watch people doing weird things after every page or so}), That Old Cape Magic, or anything by Richard Russo (death by a million commas).
Those are just a few of many novels that come to mind (but did you notice the preceding sentence contained twelve commas, two dashes, a semicolon, and parentheses aplenty–very Russo-y, I thought (I must submit something to The New Yorker Magazine).
Now back to DeMille. After that I’m going back to Hemingway and maybe Robert Ruark (remember him?).