I’m about to receive and give the perfect gift for the second year in a row. And since the holiday season invites generosity, I suggest we get you involved…
I won’t make you languish: it’s a book.
(But not just any one.)
To understand the magnitude of the gift, we have to go back to 2013, the year when producer Marie-Claude Beaulieu formed a virtual book club. Marie-Claude is a fantastic woman about whom I could write ten columns without getting tired of it… She has an unusual energy and a serious commitment to everything that makes life not dull.
As a great lover of literature, she created a Facebook group so that her circle of acquaintances could share critiques, favorites and reflections. Ten years later, more than 700 friends and friends of friends have joined his book club.
I’ve been part of it for two years. And for the second year, therefore, I will be able to take advantage of the Club’s famous gift exchange. I will explain the mechanics to you in the hope that you will be inspired to spread the joy of reading too…
Every fall, Marie-Claude Beaulieu asks who the members of the Club are who want to participate in the exchange. Between 45 and 70 of them responded. She collects their email address and organizes the freelance using an online tool, such as Pikkado. In November, everyone receives a private message indicating the identity of the person to whom they should give a used book.
And that’s where the fun begins.
It’s a book box, but virtual! I like receiving gifts and I also really like giving them. It’s good to take the time to package the book and do the old gesture of going to the post office…
Marie-Claude Beaulieu
As the participants are located throughout Quebec, the offering must be mailed. The only cost of the activity is therefore that of shipping. But before this step, there is the difficult process of selecting the work.
Most Book Club members don’t really know each other. What to give to a stranger?
Finally, we can spy on other people’s virtual lives without feeling dirty!
Last year, I recruited a very active Club contributor. I re-read each of his reviews and searched his Facebook account thoroughly to make sure he didn’t already have a copy of May our joy remain by Kevin Lambert. I wasn’t sure if the novel suited her tastes, but I suspected it would impress her. For Christmas, I was hoping to give him some literary experience. He then spoke of a “step out of the comfort zone” and a “brilliant author”.
Relief.
We must be sure of our choice. A beloved book is a fragile object that you only want to see in good hands…
What if the other doesn’t know how to appreciate it at its true value? We risk getting rid of a precious asset for nothing. The transaction is fraught with meaning.
“There are people who don’t want to give away their books,” confirms Marie-Claude Beaulieu. I think it needs to circulate! I’m not going to give away a flat book just because I’m comfortable getting rid of it. The pleasure is to give one that I really like…”
In my experience, it’s worth it. Last year I received feminist poetry. Not only had the one who had caught me figured out my tastes, but she had also been able to touch me with a pretty handwritten letter. And this is perhaps the part of the present that makes it perfect: it is no longer just a matter of literature.
Sara Juliette Hins was particularly marked by an edition of the gift exchange. The woman who had picked up his name offered him a book and… a warning: you would have to wait for the right moment to read it. Months later, Sara dove into a work that spoke directly to her heart.
That year, Amélie Jetté understood that she was experiencing emotions similar to those of another reader. She only knew Sara Juliette Hins through the comments she left in the Book Club, but guessed that they would recognize each other. She had just bought a new copy of The heatwave of the poorby Jean-Simon DesRochers (his first was falling apart from being read so much), when she picked out Sara’s name.
“I wrote a card where I spoke to him about the novel, yes, but also about the ties that united us, beyond literature. I felt connected to someone I only knew virtually and it felt good. It applied a little balm to what I was going through. I have always believed that the magic of literature is also to transform this solitary act of reading into an exchange with others, and this is, among other things, what Marie-Claude Beaulieu allows us to do. [de faire]. »
Book club or not, offering a book that has lived with us is an option that is not only practical in these uncertain economic times, but also deeply touching…
A lover of words recognizes the burden that a work can carry. If you give him pages that moved you, he will know how to take care of them. In fact, he will understand that it is a privilege to be able to hold such a story in his hands.
And the height of intimacy is when the copy is annotated! If the notes, the highlighted passages and the dog-eared pages allow us to better understand a loved one, this is really the perfect gift, in my opinion… Except that such a revelation is like love: it’s not for the fearful.1
1. This fall is courtesy of Vincent Vallières.