An Open (Human Library) Book

As a writer, and a good friend of several librarians, I blush to disclose—I’m not a huge library goer. It may hearken back to my childhood, when lost library books and sky-high late fees were the norm at the Cunningham house. My sister Mo died in 1981. I later found a Sandy Springs Library copy of Jane Eyre Mo had checked out—but never returned—in 1972. I was so terrified that the fine would be in the thousands that (blushing again) I STILL HAVE NOT RETURNED IT. I comfort myself with the knowledge that this Jane Eyre is not exactly a first edition and I’m guessing it has been replaced by now, but still…

As an adult reader, I buy my books, almost exclusively. Paperbacks overflow my bookshelves at home and at church. My Kindle is jam-packed with titles. Surely it’s because I want to support my fellow authors that I continue to shell out money for my reading material, right? And not that combo of acquisitiveness and laziness that are my trademarks?

So it was a bit strange that on Sunday afternoon, I found myself in a virtual “book depot” at a Human Library event, making my debut as a Human Book. To explain: this is an awesome project based in Copenhagen, aiming to promote dialogue and understanding through the sharing of stories of people society deems “different” in any way. In my ongoing quest to raise awareness and increase acceptance of those with mental health issues, I applied to be a Human Book. There followed a decently long process of screening, interviewing and training. In normal times (what are those? Anybody remember?) the Human Book Events were held live, and locally. With Zoom, these events are open to “readers” from all over.

I was identified by my first name and the title of my “book” (in my case, “Bipolar.” Some of my fellow books included “Adopted,” “Asian-American,” “Autism,” “Transgender,” “Gay,” and “MS.” ) We logged on at 1:30 PM, met each other, went over the plan for the afternoon, and waited to be summoned to breakout rooms (one room per book) where we’d meet our groups of readers. We were supposed to speak briefly about ourselves, then open things up for questions. We needed to be prepared, we were told, for a wide variety of inquiries. Saturday night, I had dreamed my “readers” were snarling, antagonistic haters who hurled insults and then left the virtual meeting in a huff.

My fears were not realized—my four readers were delightful people, two men (from Sweden and NYC) and two women (from France and Philly), who asked terrific, respectful questions. The hour passed very pleasantly, and at the end I felt they did understand bipolar disorder a little more. I’m excited to continue with this program and do more events.

The Human Library Project’s slogan is “Unjudge Someone.” If we really could approach each other with open, UN-judging minds and hearts, what a world it could be!