Bugs and Bookstores

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Kleenex-small-boxJust read a ShelfTalker piece from Publishers Weekly about the challenges of staying healthy if you are a bookseller. Let’s just say that it is not easy when one works with the public all day to stay healthy during cold and flu season. The writer talks about parents who stop at the store with obviously sick kids to pick up books, on the way to the pediatrician. Handling cash and credit cards of those who may not have coughed into their elbows is a recipe for time off.

I suppose there is no way we are ever going to have perfectly germ-free environments no matter how many “safe sneezing and coughing” videos we watch and how many hand sanitizers and sprays we use. What you would hope for instead is some common sense and courtesy. The truth is that booksellers aren’t the only ones affected. Cafe workers have to handle germy cups and plates. Other customers may handle books or other articles a sick person has touched including door handles. In our go-go culture we’ve been trained to do just that until we are laid out, sick as a dog, sick.

Instead of passing along sickness to the fellow bibliophiles, here are a few thoughts:

  • This is a great time to catch up on reading the books you have. Take that cold or flu medicine, get into your jammies, get a cup of hot tea, and snuggle up with a good book.
  • Need books? Here is where an e-reader is really helpful. You can borrow them from the library or buy them online without putting a single person at risk.
  • There are also many sources of free books such as Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and a number of free Kindle books on Amazon, and other online sources that you can read on a tablet or computer.
  • That’s not possible? You can reserve books online at your library and pick them up with minimal contact, particularly if you have self-checkout. Can the books carry microbes? It’s possible but most die within hours or days in a dry environment. Maybe if your kids are sick, you can make sure they use hand sanitizers and wait three days before returning the books.
  • You can put a call out on Facebook to your friends that you are desperate for books. Let them know your favorite types. And maybe they can bring some chicken soup as well. If not, the books are a good substitute!

Many of us develop good relationships with our booksellers. They are our friends. If they work at an indie store, it is not always easy for them to take time off if they get sick.

Love thy bookseller as thyself!

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s the Bookternet!

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Seriously.

Recently, Publishers Weekly convened a panel at Penguin Random House offices in Manhattan to talk about the phenomenon that this blog is a part of–the internet of books, or bookternet. I am not usually a big fan of neologisms but this one was interesting, as is the phenomenon that it represents.

What publishers are talking about is the realization that there is an online book culture that exists in a number of places around the ‘net where people are talking about books. One of the most interesting statements in this article is this one by Rebecca Schinsky of Book Riot:

“Online book fans aren’t looking for reviews or longform essays about books. ‘No one is interested in reviews on Book Riot,’ Schinsky said. ‘They want conversation. People want to talk about what they’re reading and what book they’ll read next.’ ”

That’s an interesting statement for reviewers as well as publishers. Publishers can learn a good deal, it was suggested, by listening in on these conversations and offering content that connects with the interests in these book communities. It also means that the “buzz” about a book is not something that can simply be generated by Madison Avenue. To some degree, it is in the hands of people who are talking about books, and there is a serendipitous element about that. Here’s a book publicist who has figured how this works, and coined the word, bookternet:

What about us reviewers and book bloggers? I think what this suggests is the idea that for a review to really become a conversation, it needs to be something other than a seemingly definitive description and opinion of the book. A conversation that is not a conversation stopper is open-ended–with questions, provocations, and laughter. And maybe sometimes, it is just sharing what we are wondering about as we read a book and whether this meshes with the experience of others who are reading it. It’s cool sometimes just to find out what the Book Riot folk are reading and why.

One of the most interesting challenges in this online world is finding those interested in talking about the books you are reading. Some groups where I’ve posted are mostly just self-published authors promoting books. Hardly anyone engages what others post. Sometimes the interested people find you if you’ve tagged your post well and it comes up on searches–still learning about that one.

I have found that if you can point to a body of work, some level of viewership, and turn around reviews and other material on books, publishers will work with you, at least some of the time. Actually you are exchanging your work of reading and writing for a free copy of their book. The trick I’m learning is to do that for books I’m really interested in reading.

If you are a book blogger or otherwise involved in online conversations about books, what are you learning about the bookternet?

Bob on Books is Now on Tumblr

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Just a quick news update. Bob on Books is now on Tumblr. If you use Tumblr as a blog aggregator, you can now add Bob on Books to your feed. And if you are just discovering this blog on Tumblr, head over to bobonbooks.com to see all the good stuff that’s been posted here!

Of course those used to finding me here on WordPress will still find me here. I’ll just be sharing posts to the Tumblr “Bob On Books” page I’ve set up.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Valentine’s Day

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Valentines Candy Hearts (c)2015, Robert C Trube

Valentines Candy Hearts (c)2015, Robert C Trube

Remember these?

I’m writing on Valentine’s Day and so I thought I would reflect on Valentine’s Day growing up.

Remember Valentine card exchanges and parties in elementary school?

I do. It was a day I approached with lots of fear and trepidation. I was a “Charlie Brown” kind of kid. Not the most popular, athletic, or good looking, and more than a bit nerdy. (Some would say nothing has changed!) My great fear was that when the cards were handed out, I wouldn’t get any–or only a very few. While all the other kids would be showing off all the cards they got, maybe counting them, I’d just shuffle off with my few.

It never really turned out that way. The combination of teacher and parental pressure made it a rule (can’t remember if it was spoken or not) that you gave a Valentine to every kid in your class. And we did. And even though I realized that and that my card count didn’t mean anything, I was still relieved. At least I had a box full of cards that I could take home and show mom. That made the cupcakes and Valentine candies that we had at our class parties so much tastier.

I don’t recall that these parties and exchanges went much beyond third grade. I suspect it would was increasingly hard to get boys to go along with all this. Apart from the food, this was all kind of “yucky” at that stage.

Neither my wife nor I recall this being a big deal for our parents. Maybe a card, maybe an extra kiss and a hug, but not the “big event” deal that it seems to have become these days with reservations at expensive restaurants and all the other trappings. In many cases, they couldn’t afford that many “big events” and the complex of card shops, florists, and restaurants hadn’t convinced them that all this was necessary.

By Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Valentine Baptizing St. Lucilla. By Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo da Ponte) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s kind of odd that this day is named after St. Valentine. For one thing, it appears there might be several figures with that name, all of whom were faithful priests and martyrs. A common element in all their stories was that they died rather than renouncing their faith. The most common account is that Valentine was the Bishop at Terni. Once, while being held prisoner, he was put to the test and healed a blind girl, resulting in his and other Christians being released. He was eventually reimprisoned under Claudius II who liked him until Valentine sought to convince Claudius to become a Christian. He was martyred February 14, 269.

The earliest reference to Valentine’s Day in connection with romantic love seems to be by Geoffrey Chaucer in Parlement of Foules in 1382 and there are early descriptions of the day as a celebration of romantic love in the French court of Charles VI in the early 1400s. So this connection has been around for a long time, but is still puzzling to me–except if you consider Valentine as a model of sacrificial love.

Actually I wonder if our parents understood more about the real St Valentine (whoever he was) than many on our contemporary scene. Real love for them went beyond the romantic gush that surrounds this day. It was showing up for your family, and showing up at church or mass. That was love, and something they celebrated in quiet but practical ways every day.

What are your memories of Valentine’s Day growing up?

Review: 30 Events that Shaped the Church

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30 eventsWriting an accessible church history for a general adult audience is no small task, particularly writing one that people will read. Alton Gansky’s book succeeds in providing a readable, fast-moving survey of the history of the church through 30 succinct vignettes of important events in this two thousand year history.

One of the strengths of this book is Gansky’s ability to narrate events and give us concise profiles of key individuals and concluding summaries that underscore the significance of each event for the church. Many will find his accounts of early church history especially helpful, including the fall of Jerusalem, the burning of Rome, the Edict of Milan, the Nicaean Council, and so forth. It was particularly illuminating for me to realize the fine scholarship involved in Jerome’s Vulgate translation, as well as to understand the expansion of the power of the papacy. I also appreciated his even-handed narrative of the evolution controversies in this country.

Of course, one of the difficulties of Gansky’s approach is the selection of events. For the most part, this is a narrative of Western, and in the last third, American Christianity. While this is probably what is of greatest interest to those who would be the target audience of this book it fails to account for the rise of the modern missions movement and the explosive and game-changing growth of Christianity in China, other east and southeast Asian countries, and in much of the southern hemisphere. And in its narrative of American Christianity he seems to have little to say about slavery, the abolitionist movement, and the black church and civil rights.

I found his decision to include the Jesus Movement as both personally of interest (because of the impact of this movement in my life) and yet questionable as a major church-shaping event–particularly because of the focus on contemporary Christian music, which certainly has changed American church worship. I would not have given separate chapters to Darwin and the Scopes trials.

I also found one inaccuracy (probably a proof-reading error). On page 242 he notes the death of Pope Pius XII, who preceded Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. On page 244 he indicates that Pius XII succeeded Pope John XXIII, which would have been a far more momentous event than Vatican II. In actuality it was Pope Paul VI.

In summary, I found this a highly readable and informative account of Western and white American church history. It is regrettable, considering the readability of this volume, that it is not more truly representative of the whole Church.
____________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

“Our Healing is in our Obedience”

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Pieter Aertsen 1507/08 – 1575 The Healing of the Cripple of Bethesda

Pieter Aertsen 1507/08 – 1575
The Healing of the Cripple of Bethesda

“Our healing is in our obedience.”

I’ve been musing on this phrase ever since Rich [Hagopian, for those of you who don’t know my pastor] said this during this past Sunday’s message on the healing of the invalid at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:1-15.

The basic story is that Jesus comes upon this man who he has learned has been in this condition for 38 years. It was believed that if you could get into the water when it was stirred, you could be healed.

Jesus asks him, “do you want to be well?” The man never answers this searching question. Yet it had to be asked–you can get accustomed to being sick, having others care for you and so forth, to the point that healthy life is the scary thing.

Instead, the man gives the many reasons why he could not get into the pool before others. This provokes all kinds of questions and one wonders if this is a pretty lame excuse.

Jesus neither questions the answer or re-asks his original question. Jesus doesn’t blame or judge him. Instead, Jesus simply tells him to get up and take his mat with him. The man does what Jesus says, and in so doing, in the moment of obedience, finds himself healed. His healing is in his obedience. In doing what Jesus says, he finds he is able to walk.

It seems to me that this speaks to those critical moments where we face the choice to trust and follow Jesus in some critical area of obedience, or not. On the one hand, we often can come up with many reasons why we haven’t been able to follow up until now. On the other hand, we sometimes want all kinds of assurances and proofs that Jesus will heal us, help us, be with us, before we follow.

And like this incident, there will be times where none of it matters.

The only thing in those moments is, will we trust that Jesus knows what he is doing enough to do what he says? Sometimes, that is all he will give us and we can only find whether he is true by obeying him.

Probably in my own life, the area where I’ve most been challenged by this is in the matter of giving. It seems crazy, mathematically at least, to set aside a portion of my salary each month for kingdom purposes and to somehow believe that what remains (especially after Uncle Sam gets his chunk!) will be enough. There is no way to know that will be the case before you do it! Yet the crazy paradox is that it is the times when I’ve not been faithful in giving where I’ve felt the most financially stressed. Leaning into giving and generosity, as crazy as it seems, has been the thing that has helped heal me from being obsessed about having “enough.” My healing in the areas of worry about money has been in obedience.

And God has taken care of us through 36-plus years of marriage, and sometimes miraculously, such as the time when we were facing $2000 in unreimbursed medical bills, and the same day we added this up we received a gift of $2000 from someone who said God had told them to send us a check.

I continue to face these moments where I simply have to decide, will I trust Jesus enough to do what he says, laying aside my excuses and not asking for any proofs (which really don’t make obedience easier).

What about you? It might be that the place where you find it hard to trust and obey is the very place where Jesus can bring healing as you obey. What does “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” look like for you?

This blog also appears on Smoky Row Brethren Church’s Going Deeper blog.

Review: Daring Greatly

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Daring GreatlyI can’t seem to get away from Teddy Roosevelt! Brene’ Brown begins this book with a quote from a speech of his at the Sorbonne in 1910 in which he talks about the man in the arena being the one who counts and not his critics, the man who strives for great things at great cost. Her title is drawn from these words:

“…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly….”

Brown describes her research into vulnerability as one that led her to a personal breakdown, which her therapist described as a spiritual renewal. She traces her research course, which began by exploring human connection and discovered in her interviews that the fear and shame of disconnection is what came up over and over again. She says she was hijacked by her data into researching shame, and the flip side of this, a shame resilience that enables people to overcome shame and live “wholeheartedly.” Wholeheartedness comes from a sense of one’s basic worthiness, cultivated through a variety of practices such as letting go of perfectionism, of numbing and powerlessness, of scarcity fears, of the need for certainty and more.

A key to wholehearted living that “dares greatly” that is at the core of this book is the embrace of vulnerability. Vulnerability requires courage and a willingness to press against all the “vulnerability myths” shared by both women and men. But it leads to compassion and connection, nowhere illustrated more than in Brown’s concluding chapter having to do with vulnerability and parenting. I found myself saying “Amen” and “Amen” and wishing that my peers in parenting could have heard this sooner and not inflicted so much pain on each other around being the perfect parent. Her stories of being imperfectly vulnerable with her children and allowing them to dare greatly, even if this just meant showing up, were worth the price of admission.

I found her insightful in the ways we shield ourselves from vulnerability through foreboding joy, where we do not allow ourselves joy because we are waiting for the other shoe to drop, through perfectionism, where we think that by doing things right we will never know shame, and through numbing, by which we deaden ourselves from the painful things in life. Instead, she advocates practicing gratitude in the moments of joy, appreciating the “cracks” in our life that shed light on our humanness, and learning how to feel and lean into our hard feelings while setting proper boundaries.

She also challenges organizations to “mind the gap” and practice “disruptive engagement”–developing awareness of the gaps between strategy and culture and the ways we discourage engagement through corporate shaming practices. Bringing the best that we have often involves vulnerability and risk in disruptively engaging broken corporate culture.

I found this a helpful book that was immediately applicable for me in several situations in which I was mentoring young leaders facing the choices of “safe” disengagement or vulnerably stepping into their work as leaders. Vulnerability is scary for all of us and yet ultimately the only path to real connection and real greatness. Brene’ Brown helps us on that path through her stories and research, even while helping us to see that each of us makes that path our own by walking into vulnerability.

Atticus Finch and Scout Live!

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MockingbirdI think it was back in high school when I read To Kill a Mockingbird, which would be over forty years ago. It was probably too early to fully appreciate the book. I’ve never read it since but have come across many who love it. It still sells at a brisk pace earning $1.7 million per year for its 88 year old author, Harper Lee. It was the only book she ever published and she swore she would not publish another. Until now.

It has been announced, with some controversy apparently, that another manuscript of Lee’s has been found. Go Set a Watchman is set twenty years later than To Kill a Mockingbird but was written first. Tonya Carter, Lee’s attorney, found the manuscript while doing some legal work for Lee and realized that while Scout and Atticus Finch were part of the story, they were older and this was a different story. According to a New York Times interview with Carter, Lee acknowledged that this was the “parent” of To Kill a Mockingbird, because the publisher wanted a younger Scout.

This is the publishing blockbuster of the year. The controversy only adds to the interest. Why would Lee only now consent to its publication? Was it really lost all this time? Was she pressured by her lawyer? Whatever the truth may be and whatever the quality of the book, it is currently the #1 bestseller on Amazon even though it won’t be released until July 14.

I wonder if after all these years whether Harper Lee wants to vindicate the judgment that led her to write this book. It is interesting to think that Go Set a Watchman was the original idea and To Kill a Mockingbird the afterthought. Given the acclaim and publishing history of the latter, I wonder if she truly believed her initial book to be lost. Otherwise, it would seem logical to follow it up with this book–the reading public would eat it up, even as it is now. I kind of wonder if she is thinking, “if you liked Mockingbird, you should see the book they never let me publish.”

So I’m inclined to take this at face value. But whatever is the case I find myself like the rest of reading America anticipating the release of this new novel–and wanting to revisit the now classic To Kill a Mockingbird, which is temporarily out of stock on Amazon. Apparently, I’m not the only one eager to reacquaint himself with Atticus Finch and Scout.

How Much Do You Read?

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How much do you read? This was a question posted on Facebook as a comment on my review of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Bully Pulpit. The truth is, I read a good deal, but even so, it took me a month to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book. And the truth is, I enjoyed every minute of it! That might be as good an answer as any for how much to read — as much as you enjoy without interfering with other obligations in life.

rooseveltTeddy Roosevelt found time to read for several hours most days, interspersed through his days. He was known to read a book or more a day. The Art of Manliness has an article on Roosevelt’s reading list — some of which he read multiple times.

What do I do? Most days I try to read for 60 to 90 minutes in the morning in a couple different books. On evenings when I don’t have commitments I do the same, usually with a mug of something hot and listening to some good music. I read most of Sunday afternoons, unless the weather is so inviting that you just have to get out. I usually have a book or two (or my Kindle) in my bag and will “snatch read” when I have some spare moments. I have several books going at once. (You can see what I’m reading on the Goodreads widget on my home page.)

This may be thought odd, and if so, guilty as charged. But is it any less odd that watching three to four hours of TV a night, or a number of two hour or longer movies every week? Or what about the time we spend on the internet or on our smart phones (doing something other than reading)? My point is not to criticize those choices. We choose what we value. One of the things I value is good literature. If you decide to read more, it may mean deciding to do something else less.

I try to read when I can best concentrate. I don’t try to read something overly heavy if I’m listening to music. That is a tug of war. I think I read relatively quickly, although speed is not the issue. If someone is taking a lot of time to elaborate a point he or she has made, I will read that more quickly.

How much to read is as individual a choice as your favorite flavor of ice cream. Years ago, so, someone told me that if you read 15 minutes a day, you can read 15 books in a year. (I probably average 120 minutes a day, and I read about 120 books a year, so this might be a good rule of thumb.) It’s not good to read beyond your ability to absorb what you are reading. It ceases to be enjoyable at that point. For me, that usually comes after an hour of uninterrupted reading. That’s a good time to do something else, or at least refill the coffee mug. So in the end, I come back to the idea I began with, read as much as you enjoy without interfering with the other obligations in your life.

How much would you say you read?

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — What We Still Have

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IMG_0773

Stone Bridge on Lake Glacier (c)2015, Robert C Trube

How good it was. How much we’ve lost. These two phrases seem to capture the gist of so many of the online conversations I’ve had with present and former Youngstowners since starting this series of posts.

On the one hand, so many of us, especially those of us who grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, share these incredibly rich memories of working class Youngstown ranging from good jobs to healthy neighborhoods to close extended families to a surprisingly rich cultural life ranging from ethnic festivals to classical concerts, from baseball and bowling leagues to art shows at the Butler.

On the other hand, even with all the efforts to create a “new” Youngstown, we live with a communal grief for what has been lost–from the skies aglow with steel-making, to summers at Idora Park, to the sadness when we visit the neighborhoods of our youth to find an abandoned house or vacant lot where we once lived. It is not a simple thing to occupy, let alone maintain all that housing stock when you’ve lost 100,000 of your people.

I could go on but what I would rather focus on is what we still have, whether we are living in Youngstown or are part of the “Youngstown Diaspora.” What I’ve discovered as I’ve written and interacted and reflected is that having grown up in Youngstown, there are things we carry with us. You may take us out of Youngstown. You can’t take Youngstown out of us.

  • For one thing, we know good food. If nothing else, our mission to the world ought to be one of educating people about what makes a good pizza! It has been a delight to meet Bobbi Ennett Allen and see the great work she and her friends have done in Recipes of Youngstown to preserve so many of those family recipes and good ethnic dishes we grew up with. [2/8/15 update: There is now a second Recipes of Youngstown that will be coming out soon to benefit the Mahoning Valley Historical Society that may be pre-ordered at their website.]
  • There are values we grew up with that are worth preserving and passing along to our families and others. Youngstowners are no-nonsense, hard-working, family-oriented, and resilient. Youngstowners do not tolerate those who whine, indulge in self-pity, or self-adulation. We would say they are “full of it” (or something more earthy).
  • Not all our memories are nostalgia. We know what makes a good place. We know what the “new urbanists” are only just discovering–that a good place has sidewalks, home owners, and a diversity of businesses and services in walking distance. I’ve had a chance to talk to some working in the Idora Park area to renew the neighborhoods there and they get this–and that good places are not 90 day wonders but take years of hard work.
  • We cherish beauty. Somehow, we’ve managed to preserve and enhance Mill Creek Park and we return there whenever we visit. We’ve always supported the fine and performing arts. The gritty world of manufacturing taught us that it was not enough just to make things–we craved things of beauty. The world still needs people with this vision.
  • We are people who know how to celebrate. I can’t think of any place where the weddings are more fun than in Youngstown. Nobody else (except some Pittsburgh folk who probably got it from us) even knows what a cookie table is let alone what a good one looks like! We didn’t think all of life is a party. Much of it was hard, so when there was a wedding, or even a wake, you celebrated. When there was a holiday, you cooked and baked like crazy and you celebrated.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. There is so much we carry within us that has not been lost. But it can be if we keep it within because none of us lives forever. The best of our heritage can live on if we share it with our children, and bring our best into our communities, our places of worship, and our work.

Writing this series has been a fun project with a serious purpose. The experiences and memories that we’ve shared and enjoyed together are things that have shaped us. I think much of that is profoundly good–good to remember if we are seeking the peace and prosperity of Youngstown–and good to be mindful of and draw upon wherever we find ourselves.

Read all the posts in the Growing Up in Youngstown Series by clicking the “On Youngstown” category link either at the top of this page or in the left column of my home page.