An autobiography? Isn’t that where someone tells their life story? Indeed, and in the case of Autobiography of a Book it is the book itself who steps up to tell the story, its own life in its own words. Yet it needs your help. The book reaches out to you. You are the one who gives it life. Every time Book is read, Book lives.
How does that work? Isn’t a book just a thing? Yes, a book is a thing. But it is also a voice. When you read a book that voice speaks within you. It is no longer lifeless on a page, but has become a personality that lives in your head.
Why should anyone read such an autobiography? Well, what does one usually get out of reading autobiographies? Perhaps the reader hopes for some insight into the writer’s achievements, how they persevered through the rough spots, how it is that they came to your attention at all. And maybe you learn something from what they did. As different as we all are, each from the other, we feel the same emotions — worries, fears, tenderness, love. None of us knows exactly where our life will take us. In Autobiography of a Book a book figures out how to come alive and where its life will go. Perhaps the reader learns something also, something more about what it is to be alive.
The voice of Book came to me several years ago and wouldn’t go away until I wrote it down. Book refers to me as its “secretary,” as I took the dictation, for the book itself is the real author.
Real? Well, everything Book says is what really happens because what happens is Autobiography of a Book.
Besides the narrative, Autobiography of a Book has a handsome and possibly unique design. In the initial pages, its words first emerging into the world, the words appear white on a black page, as though each word was lighting its own way in the darkness, each subsequent word pushing that darkness further and further away. As the pages progress the darkness gradually lifts. By the book’s middle the text switches shades and the words become a more and more confident black, the pages paling until the book has proven itself, showing itself in full light, its dream of becoming a real book at last come true.
Autobiography of a Book is published by AC Books (edited by Holly Crawford, book design by Daniella Domingues). Single copy orders by individuals, and multiple copy orders for bookstores can now be purchased from AC Books’ new distributor Itasca Books in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
To read praise of Autobiography of a Book and follow links to short excerpts that have been published over the years in online literary sites, click here:
What a marvelous concept!