It is interesting how some books come into our lives. Generally speaking, I read literary fiction, a cozy mystery now and again, middle grade children's fiction and contemporary, realistic Young Adult fiction. Sometimes, most times for me, the introduction to a new book is fairly straightforward. A favorite author, a starred review, a book club title, an interesting book jacket, book buzz from my personal learning network...but then there are books that I never would have read except for the occurrence of an exact, special certain set of circumstances. I want to tell you about such a situation. Consider this a tale of how I met my current book.
A short while ago I was feeling particularly low. I was due to travel on September 11th, I had received the results from some medical tests and the results were not good. I was sad. I was disappointed. I was angry. I needed "a good book" and I needed this book to make me LOL. I do not mean I needed a funny book. I do not mean I needed a comfort read. Anne of Green Gables remains my go-to comfort read. I mean I needed a book that would make me LAUGH OUT LOUD. There are certain books that make you laugh so hard that you don't care if you are on public transportation with people giving you the look. I needed that kind of book.
I am a librarian. I know how to find books. Did I dive into specialized databases? No, not this time. Did I look for reviews in professional journals? Nope. What did I do? I went to Facebook. That's right Facebook. More specifically, I went to the ALA Think Tank Group on Facebook. I asked my professional, and some not so professional colleagues (their description not mine) for their suggestions and they delivered. Wow, did they deliver. I can't say enough about the awesomeness that is my personal learning network. I received hundreds and hundreds of titles and anecdotes. Needless to say my TBR pile grew exponentially, but back to the story at hand.
I read the suggestions and smiled. I read the suggestions and laughed. I read the suggestions and felt better. Some I had read before. Some were not my tastes. Some were absolutely marvelously me. All were shared with caring and delight. THANK YOU, ALA THINK TANK! THANK YOU!
I narrowed down the list and had decided on two titles. The titles weren't and aren't the matter of importance here. What is important is that I reached out and my library community helped me through a difficult time.
Fast forward to September 22nd. My trip was successful. My first presentation at a library conference had gone well. I had scheduled needed medical appointments and I was back at work. Actually, I was asked to work on-call at another library and I had said yes. I should note that it is hard to get a yes out of me for most on-call shifts. Anyway, I am working a shift at a nice library and one of the librarians asked if I could work another shift there the next day. I said yes. She asked if I would help her with some collection development. I said yes. I returned the 23rd and began helping her weed. As I was weeding, I was distracted by a paperback with a sky blue spine and a familiar title. Yes Man by Danny Wallace. I laughed out loud right there in the stacks. This was one of the titles that had been recommended to me by ALA Think Tank. I checked it out. The irony was not lost on me that I would not have met this book, if I hadn't said yes to asking the ALA Think Tank for help, yes to working on-call, and yes to helping a fellow librarian with her weeding assignment. So, this has been the tale of how I met my current book. More accurately, this has been a shout-out to the ALA Think Tank, a rambling tale of gratitude, why I am reading Yes Man, and the interesting things that can happen when you say yes.
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