Tomorrow is
Valentine’s Day. Besides buying your
sweetheart a card and/or gift, you might want to buy a book for Donald Trump.
A Facebook
group, Leaders are Readers, has called for concerned literary citizens to “Bury
the White House in Books” on Valentine’s Day.
Aaron Hamburger and Stacie
Whitaker, the organizers of the event, are urging people to buy books that they
think Donald Trump should read, wrap them, write messages in them, and then
send them to the White House as a Valentine’s gift (https://www.facebook.com/events/1859858284295480/).
Of course
it is well known that Trump does not read books. Claire Fallon, culture writer at The Huffington Post, argued that people
should not have any illusions: “No
matter how many times we thoughtfully publish helpful, diverse reading lists for
President Trump, and no matter how many volumes of serious presidential
biographies are slyly slipped onto his nightstand by more intellectual
advisors, Trump almost definitely isn’t going to read any of them.” She did concede, however, that the tactic “could
be a serious annoyance” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/send-trump-books-valentines-day_us_5898b09be4b0406131382138).
Emily
Temple of Literary Hub also argued against
the tactic: “Why not send a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale—or some other timely
book—to a relative who voted for Trump, with a long, heartfelt note inside as
to why you think they might enjoy reading it? They are much more likely to take
you up on it than anyone in the administration.” She continued: “Instead of throwing away your hard-earned money
and your hard-earned books on a worthless, illiterate idiot like Donald Trump,
why not donate them to a local prison book program? Or to under-resourced
libraries? Perhaps your local homeless shelter? Hey, it seems like public
schools might be needing some help soon. Buying and sending books to any of
these places would be much better and more useful than sending them to Trump
just to try to make a scene.” (http://lithub.com/please-dont-buy-books-just-to-send-to-trump/).
Perhaps the
strongest argument that sending books to Trump is futile can be found in an
article entitled “Donald Trump is Afraid of Books” written by Josh Corman in BookRiot. Corman’s thesis is that Trump is afraid to
read books because books are a serious threat to his ego and perception of
himself. Reading could expose Trump to
the possibility that he doesn’t know everything and that he could be wrong. Books challenge assumptions and “Trump views
uncertainty as weakness. He views
changing your mind as an admission of failure. And Trump is afraid of nothing so much as
being seen as a failure, a loser. Which
means, of course, that books scare him to death.” The essay is a great read:
All of this
reminds me of a campaign started by Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi. From 2007 until 2011, Martel sent our former
prime minister, Stephen Harper, a book every two weeks – a total of more than
one hundred novels, poetry collections, plays, graphic novels and children’s
books. Each gift was accompanied by a
letter discussing the worth of the book and exploring the importance of reading
not only as a pleasure but as an essential way of knowing the world and
understanding life. Harper never responded. (I
wrote about this campaign back in August, 2016:
http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2016/08/canadian-prime-ministers-and-reading.html.)
If you’re looking
for a title that might an appropriate Valentine’s gift for Trump, check out my
blog entries for the last six days, from February 7 – 12 (inclusive). Or check out the complete list of books that
Martel recommended: http://guides.lib.montana.edu/c.php?g=198308&p=1302674.
Since Martel’s
letters were published in book form in 2012
(101 Letters to a Prime
Minister: The Complete Letters to
Stephen Harper), maybe this book could be sent to Trump?
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