This is Banned Book Week and I always suggest reading and passing on a banned book to celebrate it. After all, if other people weren’t banning books we’d never know which ones have all the best shit in them. Last week I got an email from someone who said that my book was banned in their library and I was all “I’VE FUCKING MADE IT, YOU GUYS” and I started planning all these celebratory protests, but then it turned out that it was an elementary school library and the librarian removed it as soon as she realized it wasn’t a book about a cute mouse. But then I started thinking that maybe if we want to keep selling books we should add some stickers to the cover and try a new, younger audience. I sent a mock-up to my publisher:
Plus, the cover is technically a shade of grey. BONUS, y'all.
PS. I’ve decided that in order to get my next book banned I’m going to entitle it This Library is BULLSHIT.
In unrelated news, it’s time for the weekly wrap up.
What you missed in my shop (tentatively called “Eight pounds of uncut cocaine” so that your credit card bill will be more interesting.):
The Bloggess for President.My slogan is “FREE UNICORNS FOR EVERYONE” because I’m running on a campaign of freeing any captive unicorns that are out there. Because unicorns should be free. For the sake of everyone. Victor says I’m misleading the public with the wording but I pointed out that technically I’m probably the only candidate who will (technically) fulfill my campaign promises. We’ve agreed not to discuss politics anymore for the sake of our marriage.
This week’s wrap-up sponsored by Sex Ed: a Sexual Health Primerfor teens/adolescents that covers everything from body image to STD’s to sex itself. I haven’t finished the whole thing but I wish I’d had it when I was 15. Plus, it’s crazy cheap. Check it out here.
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UPDATED: This display from Dolly the Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University Library (encouraging people to read banned or challenged books):
In Memoirs ~ Author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) and thebloggess.com, Jenny Lawson’s FURIOUSLY HAPPY, about life’s highs and lows and the absurdities in between, again to Amy Einhorn and Amy Einhorn Books, for publication in Spring 2014, by Neeti Madan at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Translation: Book two has begun. Terrified. Excited. At a loss for words. Which is probably a very bad thing for an writer, now that I think about it.
Fuck.
PS. Thank you. There’s a reason why LPTNH is still on the NYT list, and that reason is you. Everyday I get emails from people who have just now discovered this amazing, hysterical, bizarre online community and who finally realize how very not alone they are in their awkward weirdness. You’re helping people find their tribe and I’m so incredibly lucky to be part of that.
You are the very best kind of weird and I can’t thank you enough for sharing it.
Usually when you order my book on amazon it tells you that you’d probably also like to buy something ridiculous, like scissors, or a gallon of milk, or Fifty Shades of Grey. But it seems that they’ve finally figured me out…
Suggestions for what you might want if you bought my book:
FINALLY, THEY GET ME.
In related book news I did the last #BloggessBookClub session last night and finished off by doing a live reading. Want to see it?(Skip to the 7 minute mark if you want to just hear the reading.)
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And on a much less commercial note, this week’s wrap-up.
This week’s wrap-up sponsored by Sidebark, a super private place which offers personal and private sharing to stay connected with the people who matter most. You should check it out.
Okay, so last night we started the first ever #BloggessBookClub and promptly crashed Goodreads within 17 minutes. That’s got to be a new record. One I need to apologize for, probably. Then someone started a chat and it was so busy I felt like I’d walked into the matrix. I was kicked out within 6 minutes. This is why we can’t have nice things. It’s also why we could easily take over the world (or at least a small city) if so many of us weren’t so easily distrac….look, dust!
One good thing that did come out of last night is that a ton of people met other people just like them (yay!) and also a discussion was started amongst readers about what to call each other (like how Doctor Who fans are Whovians) and they settled on Lawsbians, which is kind of awesome. And, of course, there is a t-shirt.
In the end I think we discovered that there aren’t many places that we can’t crash so we’re trying a new one tonight (at 7pm central). It’s called twit cam and all you have to do is log onto twitter and click on the link I give you at 7p, and then you can leave comments on the side (using twitter) and ask questions and I can talk to you via webcam. I’ve heard it’s very resilient. I give it 20 minutes before we crash the whole system.
So if you want to look at last night’s chat (it’s a bit of a chaotic, overwhelming mess – but in the best way possible) you can click here. If you want to meet up with other Lawsbians (or come up with a better name for us) you can click here to share your twitter handle, blog info. If you want to leave a question for tonight you can do that in the comments section here and I’ll start with you. Please leave questions or else I’ll just be weirdly talking to myself. Or maybe I’ll do a live reading. Or maybe I’ll panic and flash the camera. GOD ONLY KNOWS, PEOPLE.
As a reminder, tonight we focus on the book through chapter 7 (Draw Me a Fucking Dog) but there are no real rules because none of us could be expected to follow them.
If you look in today’s Parade Magazine you’ll see that they focused the whole issue on the “Funny, moving, jaw-dropping summer’s best books” and you might notice that they actually picked mine as one of their top 5 nonfiction books. Then you might scream a bit if you’re me.
You might also notice that on the cover they put Nathan Fillion, possibly naked and being circled by man-eating sharks.
PS. I felt a little bad for hijacking their whole story but now I see that it was actually “Jenny Larson” that was on CNN. They really should have know better. That woman is a trouble maker.
