The Divining Wand

When Tanya Egan Gibson was a high school English teacher, one of her students admitted that she had never read any book she liked. Instead the student spent her time daydreaming about her friends and their experiences shared during the day, imagining what might have been done differently. Although this was creative, Tanya loved books too much not to accept a challenge and vowed one day to write a book the girl would like. And, after ten years. that vow/idea became How to Buy a Love of Reading.

Debuting in May, 2009 and released in trade paperback on July 27, 2010, How to Buy a Love of Reading is beyond multi-layered. In addition to its meta-fiction format, fully drawn, flawed characters, Gatsby-esque setting, society, and quotes, mention of numerous literary works, there’s more. However the novel isn’t complicated, certainly the author’s description is reassuring proof:

“My characters live in the fictional town of Fox Glen, Long Island, where appearances are everything, money is plentiful, and life is forever disappointing. Most of the characters have given up on their real, private selves and have come to believe in their public selves– images they once-upon-a-time constructed to protect their egos, and in which now they find themselves imprisoned.”

Indeed How to Buy a Love of Reading is primarily based on past behavior that now affects the characters’ present. Here is the synopsis:

To Carley Wells, words are the enemy: the countless SAT lists from her tutor, the “fifty-seven pounds overweight” assessment from her personal trainer, and most of all, the “confidential” Getting To Know You assignment from her insane English teacher (whose literary terminology lessons include “Backstory is Afterbirth” and “Setting is Nobody’s Slut”). When he tells her parents that she’s answered “What is your favorite book?” with “Never met one I liked,” they become determined to fix what he calls her “intellectual impoverishment.” They will commission a book to be written for Carley that she’ll have to love—one that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family’s devotion to the arts. They will be patrons—the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter The Love Of Reading.



Or save her.

While there is an Excerpt to the novel’s first pages, it’s up to you to discover it by visiting the website. Simply turn the light on, then browse the bookcase as well as that book being read in bed. According to Tanya, the website is filled with treasures for good reason:

“Much of the material on my website–photographs, a character’s journal, excerpts of fictional “‘books’” that are mentioned in my novel–does not appear in the book and is intended as an extension of the book, a way to keep the “‘world’” of Fox Glen alive.”

It’s also a way to pay to tribute to Carley by keeping her insight into reading alive. For her indifference to books comes from their characters. She wants them to be genuinely human, rather than figure fixtures telling a story. Carley needs to identify and care about people in a book since it’s her way of understanding herself and others. Yes it’s the “unknowable” that Tanya described in her guest post, and the “gap” that 16-year old Carley feels is too wide.

Described as “razor-sharp, funny, and poignant,” How to Buy a Love of Reading is a satire of how the rich are different or appear to be as they hide their true selves from themselves and each other. And then there’s overweight, “intellectually impoverished” Carley who is seeking much more. Although she wants to love books to understand THE boy better — for Carley even knows as in life, so in books, “there’s always a boy” –, this adolescent also wants to know and love herself.

Tanya Egan Gibson had high hopes that her debut would be “literary,” yet her attempts to write towards that goal removed emotion from the story. So she stopped trying and simply told the story of “an overweight teenage girl’s love for her unattainable best male friend.” It’s not complicated yet it is truth. Because, through the multi layers of the book and the book-within-a-book, the voice of Carley remains basic. She’s a girl who leads with her heart, a heart strong enough to set an example for all the bewildering souls around her.

And that’s the author’s gift to readers in How to Buy a Love of Reading. This present is a character/person who allows us to bring our own hearts to the pages with the desire to know and understand each other better. Could there be a more valuable reading experience for your “must read” list?

Book Giveaway: The Divining Wand is giving away two copies of Tanya Egan Gibson’s How to Buy a Love of Reading in a random drawing of comments left only on this specific post. Comments left on other posts during the week will not be eligible. The deadline is Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. EDT with the winners to be announced here in Thursday’s post. If you enter, please return Thursday to see if you’re a winner.