By MARSHA MERCER
Even in the best of times, news is rarely uplifting.
“If it bleeds, it leads” is more than a catchy TV
phrase. News thrives on quarrels, conflict and chaos.
That said, we’ve all endured a particularly sad run of
news of late.
The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
brought back the day’s horror and sorrow. The precipitous end of the war in
Afghanistan made us question, well, everything.
The pandemic tightens its deadly grip on our country because
too many of us refuse to take simple, free precautions. Our ailing planet repays
us for our disregard of climate change with disastrous storms, floods and fire.
Need I go on?
No wonder so many of us are disgusted, disheartened
and dispirited.
Usually, when the world is too much with me, I go on
vacation, but for various reasons, I haven’t taken a vacation in more than two
years.
Fortunately, fall means festivals, and in a rare
benefit of COVID-19, many festivals are again virtual, inviting us to attend
wherever we are.
The National Book Festival, sponsored by the Library
of Congress, continues through Sept. 26, with live author conversations online daily.
Only two festival events are ticketed and in person at the library in
Washington.
More than 100 popular authors from a range of fields are
participating in various formats. Among them: historian Joseph J. Ellis, fashion
designer Diane Von Furstenberg, business magnate Bill Gates, historian Annette
Gordon-Reed and journalist Isabel Wilkerson.
Children and teen authors include Traci
Chee, Kate DiCamillo, Meg Medina, Lupita Nyong’o, Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas.
Dozens of videos are available to watch on demand,
including with actor Michael J. Fox, social commentator Roxane Gay and Nobel
Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. Question-and-answer sessions with authors are
scheduled as well.
New this year is a “Festival Near You” section on the
festival website that shows local events. See more at https://www.loc.gov/events/2021-national-book-festival/
First lady Laura Bush brought the National Book
Festival to Washington on Sept. 8, 2001, three days before the world changed
utterly. That the festival has survived 20 years and evolved to meet today’s
challenges is cause for celebration at a time when we don’t have many.
The theme this year, “Open a Book, Open the World” celebrates
the power of books to change our lives as well as our perspective.
“Books have been everything to me,” poet Amanda Gorman
said in an interview with Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden on a PBS special
about the festival, available on the library’s site. Actor and child literacy advocate LeVar Burton hosts the special and
also is a festival speaker.
Gorman became a worldwide sensation at age 22 last
year when she read a poem at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. She knew she
wanted to become a writer in third grade, when her teacher read Ray Bradbury’s novel
“Dandelion Wine” to the class, she says.
Bill Gates says he was lucky as a child to have a grandmother
who read to him and his sisters. He also credits summer reading contests at the
local public library for encouraging his keen love of reading.
“An addiction to reading has been a key secret of my
success,” Gates says.
If, like me, late September makes you feel like you
should be back in school – cue Rod Stewart – the festival offers plenty of food
for thought, reflection -- and action.
Adam Grant, author of “Think Again: The Power of
Knowing What You Don’t Know,” says it’s important to avoid letting our beliefs
harden into fossils.
“The problem is we live in a rapidly changing world,
where we need to spend as much time rethinking as thinking,” he said on the PBS
special. Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, suggests: “Don’t let your ideas become your
identity.
“Look for reasons why you might be wrong, not just
reasons why you might be right. Listen to the ideas that make you think hard,
not just the ones that make you feel good.”
I haven’t read Grant’s book, but I plan to. In the
meantime, his advice makes me want to give rethinking my beliefs a go. What
about you?
©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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