Book challenge #32: A book with antonyms in the title

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson

Truth for anyone is a very complex thing. For a writer, what you leave out says as much as those things you include. What lies beyond the margin of the text? The photographer frames the shot; writers frame their world. Mrs Winterson objected to what I had put in, but it seemed to me that what I had left out was the story’s silent twin. There are so many things that we can’t say, because they are too painful. We hope that the things we can say will soothe the rest, or appease it in some way. Stories are compensatory. The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control. When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening. It is a version, but never the final one. And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold. When we write we offer the silence as much as the story. Words are the part of silence that can be spoken. Mrs Winterson would have preferred it if I had been silent.

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Books Are My Bag sent me a Reading Survival Kit!

Well, remember the #bookshopcrawl? It was run by Books Are My Bag, which is a nationwide campaign to support bookshops – did you know that almost 40% of books are bought in bookshops? But they’re still under threat. To help combat this, from the 9th to the 12th of October, BAMB parties and events will be going on in bookshops up and down the country – find your local one, join in! Search here for your nearest event.