The Life of a Bookstagrammer

When I began this blog, my intention was to blog for a while (3 months?) and see how I liked it.  I wasn’t going to tell anyone about the blog until I had some real content, until I knew what I was doing and until I had posted words worth reading. 

So I’ve been posting, in general on Fridays.  But my enthusiasm for books wasn’t sated by writing for an unseen audience.  I wanted more participation.  I also wanted to set up multiple pathways for an interested audience to find my blog. 

I set up a Twitter account for the blog.  Set up a Facebook page (both are available by pressing the links to the right).  And I set up an Instagram account.  I have all of these accounts in my personal life, too, but I set up public accounts under the name of Book Nerd Bubbles.

While Twitter and Facebook are sitting fairly idle, my Instagram life has blown up.  It turns out that there’s a community of people like me, people who love reading books, discussing books, and taking beautiful photographs of books.  Bookstagram!

Or should I say #Bookstagram?

What is Bookstagram?

Although I don’t know how many people are involved in the Bookstagram community, I can see that it is quite large.  If you’re on Instagram, do a quick search for the hashtag to see what I mean.  For me, discovering Bookstagram made me feel like I’d found my people.  I jumped into this new world with joy.

My first post on my Bookstagram account.

I started taking photographs of my books and posting them with a hashtag or two (or twenty).  What I was reading (#currentlyreading), what I hoped to read (#TBR – to be read), what my bookshelves look like (#shelfie).  I noticed that other bookstagrammers were participating in challenges and quickly found a monthly challenge that looked like fun (#SammyReadsJuly16).  This challenge gave me direction every day, which was fabulous for two reasons:  I would have run out of ideas otherwise and I wouldn’t have posted so frequently.  It also gave me a hashtag to use.

My first challenge.

Oh, hashtags.  How I love and hate you.  It has taken me a while to discern how to use hashtags (and I continue to learn).  I mean, using a hashtag is easy:  just hit the # sign and then write some words.  But how many hashtags?  Use popular ones that are often searched?  Or a more specific one?   Include them in the caption or in a comment?  Will I look desperate for views if I use lots of hashtags?  Or is that a good way to achieve more views?   As I say, I’m still learning.

But there are hashtags and posts that I don’t want to see.  Bookstagram is full of #F4F (follow for follow – if you follow me, I’ll follow you).  Others use this to build their follower base.  I understand wanting more followers (I want more, too) but I don’t believe these types of followers are the ones that I really want.  I would rather have a smaller group of followers who are genuinely interested than a larger group that doesn’t share my interests.  There are also lots of #Giveaway tags that promise an entry into a raffle in exchange for a favor.  That favor can be as simple as tagging another Instagrammer or as involved as reposting an image.  I find these reposting clutter up my feed and I’m not a fan.  Of course, I’m a hypocrite about this if the giveaway is enticing enough!

This was a fun tag challenge.  #SpellYourNameWithBooks

But finally, my biggest complaint is the uniformity of Bookstagram.  I didn’t notice this right away.  But many of the Bookstagrammers are young (mostly white) women (mostly teens to early twenties) who like romance and/or fantasy.  There’s a homogeny to their posts.  The same genres, heck, the same books.  Similar props (a popular one now is the funko – a plastic figure of characters – see here:  http://funko.com/collections/harry-potter for examples).  While I love that this group has found an outlet and a community, I wish others were in the community as well.  Maybe I just haven’t found them yet.  I have found Bookstagrammers from around the world and that’s exciting and fun.

One of my attempts at using props.

How has it impacted me?

I am reading more than I was before I started the blog and the related Bookstagram.  Maybe not much more, but more.  But I am very excited about books again.  I’ve added a great number to my TBR. 

But there have been unexpected joys, too.  I’ve met some wonderful people.  It is a community and I’ve begun to identify those with whom I share multiple interests.  I have been able to discuss books with them, compare editions, and laugh/swoon/cry at our favorites again. 

All of this has come at a financial cost!  I’ve bought 20 books in the past 36 days.  Only two (um, plus a boxed set of six) were at full Amazon price, the rest were from thrift stores or Friends of the Library sales. 

I think the biggest and best impact, though, is that I’m more connected with my books.  In composing a photo for my Bookstagram, I think about my books, their settings, their themes, their characters.  I wander through different (and sometimes new to me) sections of the library to find related, often non-fiction, books.  How do I capture the essence of a book in a photograph?  What can I say that is new or inspiring about this book?  That’s my favorite part of Bookstagram – connecting books to my environment.  Bringing books into my life in a deeper manner than before. 

My most popular post...so far.  I added
a few props and some travel hashtags.

If you're a Bookstagrammer, how did you get started?  What's your favorite part of bookstagramming?  And is there a part you don't like?  

Book Review: A Jane Austen Education

It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of the English language’s best authors.

I’m not an Austen scholar but I like to pretend to be one.  I read and reread her books (to be honest, mostly Persuasion, P&P, S&S, and Emma), I read biographies and blogs about her.  I’ve joined the Jane Austen Society of North American.  Heck, I’ve got the BBC version of P&P running in the background as I write this.

Here I am in my Pride and Prejudice scarf.  Aren't I cute?

But I’m not actually a literary scholar of any sort.  William Deresiewicz is.   I mean, he’s taught English at Yale and is a PhD (in English) from Columbia.   He wasn’t always such a fan of Austen’s.  It was only in one of his PhD classes that he began to really read and understand her.  His book, A Jane Austen Education:  How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, And The Things That Really Matter, is about his studies of Austen and how he related them to his life. 

Do you think Dr. Deresiewicz has more Austen stuff than I?

Have you been transformed by a book?  Has a work of fiction moved you to examine your life, your goals, your mistakes, even yourself?

Deresiewicz read Austen quite grudgingly when required to by a professor.  He preferred “big” stories with active heroes who developed “big” ideas and thought Austen was light and fluffy.  I mean, aren’t all of her stories just romances where the girl gets the boy?  Don’t they all end with a wedding?

But upon further examination, he began to see that Austen had something to teach him.  His book takes each of her books and explains how they related to his personal development. 

I very much enjoyed this book.  While stories about his seemingly endless stream of girlfriends didn’t hold my interest, I deeply appreciate the theme.  Books can change you, if you let them. 

Dr. Deresiewicz allowed Jane Austen, an author he has previously dismissed, to change his inner life.  He credits her with teaching him about love, friendship, and the things that really matter. 

A Jane Austen Education:  How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship,
And The Things That Really Matter, by William Deresiewicz

I’ve added some excerpt, below, if you care to read more!  If you are interested in buying this book, please consider using my affiliate link at the bottom of this post.  I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

Mr. Woodhouse and Miss Bates – the dull old man, the scatterbrained neighbor – were the kind of people I tuned out in real life.  I’d start past them and hurry on my way, or not absentmindedly and think about how I needed to get my library books renewed.  I certainly didn’t want to spend my time reading about them.  The funny thing was, the heroine agreed with me.  If I was bored with Highbury, so was Emma. 

…that was when I finally understood what Austen had been up to all along.  Emma’s cruelty, which I was so quick to criticize, was nothing, I saw, but the mirror image of my own.  The boredom and contempt that the book aroused were not signs of Austen’s ineptitude; they were the exact responses she wanted me to have.  She had incited them, in order to expose them….she was showing me my own ugly face.  I couldn’t deplore Emma’s disdain for Miss Bates, or her boredom with the whole commonplace Highbury world, without simultaneously condemning my own. 

Austen, I realized, had not been writing about everyday things because she couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.  She had been writing about them because she wanted to show how important they really are.  All that trivia hadn’t been marking time until she got to the point.  It was the point.  Austen wasn’t silly and superficial; she was much, much smarter – and much wiser – than I could ever have imagined.

To pay attention to “minute particulars” is to notice your life as it passes, before it passes.  But it is also, I realized, something more.  By talking over their little daily affairs – and not just talking them over, but talking them over and over, again and again… - the characters in Emma were doing nothing less than attaching themselves to life.  They were weaving the web of community, one strand of conversation at a time.  They were creating the world, in the process of talking about it. 

Before she began the novel (Emma), Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."^[1]   Contrast that with Elizabeth Bennet:

She was the most charming character I had ever met.  Brilliant, witty, full of fun and laughter – the kind of person who makes you feel more alive just by being around…strong and openhearted and brave, the devoted friend who’d protect you like a lioness.

If Emma had taught him to pay attention to the details of others’ lives, what would Pride and Prejudice teach him? 

Emma showed me from the very beginning just how desperately wrong its heroine was.  I couldn’t stand her – until Austen showed me how much I resembled her.  But here I was, halfway through Pride and Prejudice, and not only was I head over heels for Elizabeth, I agreed with everything she said and every judgment she made.  I loved her friends and hated her enemies.  I would have taken her side against the world.           

But then, as if a switch had been flipped, everything got turned upside down. …with a long, coolly argued letter that threw all the events of the first half of the novel into a completely different light.  She read it once and rejected its claims.  She read it again – and suddenly saw she’d been utterly wrong all along. 

But of course, if Elizabeth had been wrong about everything, then so had I.

Elizabeth’s errors were not accidents she could have avoided; they were expressions of her character – in fact, of the very best parts of her character, that quickness and confidence for which I loved her so.  You don’t “fix” your mistakes, Austen was telling me, as if they somehow existed outside you, and you can’t prevent them from happening, either.  You aren’t born perfect and only need to develop the self-confidence and self-esteem with which to express your wondrous perfection.  You are born with a whole novel’s worth of errors ahead of you. 

Being right, Austen taught me, might get you a pat on the head, but being wrong could bring you something more valuable.  It could help you find out who you are.   

Austen…knew that our stories are what makes us human, and that listening to someone else’s stories – entering into their feelings, validating their experiences – is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness. 

Thinking can’t stop us from feeling, but it can stop us from acting.  It can prevent us from being taken in by our feelings. 

People’s stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them.

For her (Austen), being happy means becoming a better person, and becoming a better person means having your mistakes pointed out to you in a way that you can’t ignore.  Yes, the true friend wants you to be happy, but being happy and feeling good about yourself are not the same things.  In fact, they can sometimes be diametrically opposed.  True friends do not shield you from your mistakes, they tell you about them:  even at the risk of losing your friendship –which means, even at the risk of being unhappy themselves. 

True love takes you by surprise, Austen was telling us, and if it’s really worth something, it continues to take you by surprise….  True love, for Austen, means a never-ending clash of opinions and perspectives.  If your lover’s already just like you, then neither one of you has anywhere to go.  Their character matters not only because you’re going to have to live with it, but because it’s going to shape the person you become.

Not only does you happiness depend upon your choice of mate, you very self depends upon it – your character, your soul.  Love is more than just good feelings….  Committing yourself to someone doesn’t have to limit your growth; it can be the door to perpetual growth. 

Footnotes:

All quotes from A Jane Austen Education:  How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, And The Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz (2011) unless otherwise noted.

^[1]   Austen-Leigh, James Edward (1967) [1926]. A Memoir of Jane Austen (R. W. Chapman ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 157.

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A book review of The Sound of Gravel, a memoir by Ruth Wariner

I finished reading The Sound of Gravel in two days.  It will take me much, much longer to finish thinking about it. 

The Sound of Gravel is a memoir by Ruth Wariner.  It is her first book and it recounts her childhood as part of a polygamist Mormon colony.  I imagine the hooks of “polygamy” and “Mormon” are strong ones, but if I were describing this book (which I am!), I would describe it as a child/sexual abuse story set within a cult. 

Ruth’s father was the leader of the polygamist colony in Mexico (which had been founded by his father).  She was his 39^th child by his 5^th wife.  He was killed (allegedly by men acting on his brother’s behalf) when Ruth was young and her mother remarried. 

Ruth’s story is one of adversity, of poverty, of abuse.  One of a peripatetic life spent between Mexico and the US.  One full of questions about inconsistencies between beliefs and actions.  One of disappointment in parents, of her entire community.  And finally, one of escape and survival.

There were moments of joy in Ruth’s life, too.  Friendships with classmates.  Love for her sometimes-difficult siblings.  And, of course, there was an escape from the colony after too many of her immediate family had perished. 

Ruth Wariner’s writing is plain in a way that fits her story.  It is the story of her childhood told through a child’s eyes.  She tells her story without self-pity.  She is more forgiving, more generous with her mother than I would be in her situation. 

The best news is that she survived.  And that she fled and managed to take three of her younger siblings with her.  She’s raised them, earned her GED, graduated from college and graduate school and became a high school teacher.  And now she’s written a riveting book. 

I recommend this book. 

You can read about Ruth’s father here:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_LeBaron

And about their colony here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Firstborn_(LeBaron_order)

And more about Ruth on her website:  ruthwariner.com

My favorite author

Several years ago, a friend mentioned that she liked to have the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice running on the TV while she was ironing.  

Well, I'm not a big ironer (I mean, I own an iron, but that's about it), but the idea of having "comfort TV" on while doing something else was interesting to me.  My family wasn't big on TV and certainly didn't have the TV on as background entertainment.  I asked my friend more about it, and she said that she'd seen P&P so many times that she could drop in and out of the miniseries as time and ironing allowed.  

Instead of taking up ironing, I decided to take up Pride and Prejudice.  I'd never read the book, never seen the miniseries or movie.  I was already in my mid-30s.  That's a little bit embarrassing, I know!  I'd considered myself fairly well-read but had a gaping hole where Austen was concerned.  

I started with the 1995 BBC version and then did a deep dive into all things Austen!  I started by reading Pride a couple of times, absorbing more and more each time.  Bought an annotated version so that I could really understand the context.  Began to learn about the situation of women in that time, of landowners, of second sons.  I was enraptured!  

And then I moved on, first to Sense and Sensibility, then Emma, and Persuasion.  Next, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park.  Bought and read the annotated versions of each.  Watched movies based on the books.  Read fan fiction and related novels.  Watched YouTube series.  Joined the Jane Austen Society of North America.  I can't get enough!!

Some of my annotated copies.

Today, my favorite Austen is Persuasion.  Tomorrow, P&P may regain my top spot.  S&S is always a close 3rd.  Recently, I've seen Love and Friendship and want to soak up Lady Susan - but I'm too busy rereading Persuasion!  

And did I mention that Jane and I share a birthday?  

Have you done a "deep dive" into a series?  One that has been around for over a hundred years?  What is it that brings you back for more?  I'll write about Harry Potter later, another series that I dove deep into.  

    

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