Thread by @ChuckWendig

THURSDAY. Unsure about the world? Scared? Sad? Lemme help. YOU LIVE IN A WORLD WITH BOOKS. There are books fucking everywhere. Story containers! Idea boxes! Dead tree narrative delivery systems! Read a book! Write a book! Hug a book! BUILD AN IMPENETRABLE STRONGHOLD OF BOOKS AHHH

I mean, holy shit, have you been to a bookstore? Who needs church when you got that shit? THE SMELL. THE COVERS. THE STORIES TRAPPED IN BOXES LIKE SECRET GHOSTS. Touch the pages. The cover. Behold the words, the images, the mmm, ahhh, that's the good stuff.

And sure, bookstores charge you for the books.

*whispers*

one word:

motherfucking libraries

*whispers louders*

yes that's two words but the 'motherfucking' is implicit, c'mon

LIBRARIES, WHOA. Temples of information and opportunity! Led by the MIGHTY IDEA TEMPLARS KNOWN AS LIBRARIANS. Have you *met* a librarian? They're hard-thinkin' book wizards ready to recommend a book or help you LEARN NEW SHIT. And the books are free! Free, I tell ya! Ha ha whee!

EVERY BOOK IS A DOORWAY OF ESCAPE, A PORTAL LIKE THAT CABINET THAT TOOK THOSE WEIRD BRITISH KIDS TO THE FANTASY LAND OF GOATS AND JESUS LIONS OR WHATEVER.

books books books books booooooooooks

Pick up a book. You can read it. You can use it as a paperweight. You can bludgeon enemies with it. You can fan the pages to cool yourself. You can throw it across the room at an intrusive ghost. You can barter it with other fellow book nerds. You can share it. You can eat it.

wait don't eat it

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Shit, maybe it's an e-book. Imagine that. A BOOK BASICALLY MADE OF ELECTRICITY. Pretty sure that's what it means. It's like LIGHTNING trapped in a bottle except it's STORY and INFORMATION and CHARACTERS holy shit this is serious sorcery we live in a great world

Build a wall with books. Launch books at nearby villages with your trebuchet. Carve out the pages in a bad book and inside it you can keep a smaller, better book. A BOOK INSIDE A BOOK THAT'S SOME SHYAMALAN SHIT

You know what's inside books? On the pages?

WORDS.

And you know what words are? ARCANE SIGILS STOLEN FROM THE GODS BY THE COMMONERS SO WE CAN ALL WRITE AWESOME SECRET SHIT TO ONE ANOTHER. Words are symbols and signals! Little communication containers! Tiny spells! BIBLIOTURGY!

Words are amazing! Sesquipedalian! Ineluctable! Vortex! Tornadic! Concretized! Just say those words aloud and FEEL THEIR POWER

Or when in doubt, make up your own damn words!

OWLCHEMY

it's the magic of owls!

or DOGCATION

it's a vacation for dogs!

or GUMPUS

what's a GUMPUS? Or a PHIZZARD or KROMBOLOGY?

I have no idea! But it all sounds great! Write it down, put it in a book!

Words turn into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into pages and chapters which in turn become story arcs and character arcs and narrative architecture and informational cathedrals with balustrades made of theme and mood and authorial intent and OMG BOOKS

What I'm trying to say is, when the world feels like shit, when life seems tougher than rhino leather, when shit gets dark and the void threatens to swallow you up?

Remember: you live in a world with books. To read, to write, to share.

Happy #ReadABookDay, peeps.

I will recommend three books to you now, if you choose to hear them.

First: @MaryRobinette's THE CALCULATING STARS. Effortless-seeming prose and character-driven narrative in this alt-history tale (featuring a METEORITE and ASTRONAUT FEMINISM) grab you fast and demand your time.

Second: the FEEL BAD BOOK OF THE YEAR, @paulGtremblay's THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD. I don't want to say much for fear of spoiling it but... like, a quietly apocalyptic, claustrophobic thriller has a lot to say about our current era without being *about* this era. Wow.

Finally, I've rec'ed it before, but @edyong209's I CONTAIN MULTITUDES -- a diffuse, engaging, philosophical, funny look at how we're all basically a sack of microbes toddling around. Important book and he makes it so engaging to read. Again: effortless-seeming.

(To clarify: effortless-seeming does not mean it was written effortlessly, but that the effort to write is invisible to the reader. A great deal of work goes into hiding the great deal of work that goes into writing such a tale or book.)

And this is where I get off this train and go to write my own book today, and later I'll read something, too, and hopefully you'll do the same. Writing, or reading, or sharing what you read.

BYE

p.s. buy and review my books or I wither and die

p.p.s. you know who DOESN’T read books?

our dipshit fuck president

that’s how you know that books are good, they would melt his circus peanut fingers like candlewax if he even touched one