How to form a relationship with your book

A pro­fes­sor of mine, Brad­ford Keeney, offers the fol­low­ing advice:

EVERY TIME YOU READ <insert your book here>, INTERACT WITH THE BOOK IN A WAY THAT YOU HAVE NEVER INTERACTED WITH A BOOK: 

Some pos­si­bil­i­ties: 

*drill a hole through it
*drill other holes 
*under­line spaces rather than words 
*talk to the book 
*place book under pil­low or bed or tv or stereo speaker 
*place book on serv­ing plate and place on din­ing table 
*play catch with the book 
*add wheels to the book 
*cre­ate a more aes­thetic cover for the book 
*cover author’s name with your name… after all in a con­struc­tivist uni­verse, the reader is an active par­tic­i­pant in the inter­ac­tion called “read­ing” 
*add your name to the author’s book, mak­ing it a col­lab­o­ra­tive writing/reading 
*glue a mir­ror to the front of the book
*feed your book a snack before read­ing (so it wll have the energy for you to read it) 
*heal the book with your hands 
*run a string through the hole and floss it before read­ing 
*run a string through the rope and … 
*place book on top of your head and ask it to come down to the level of your heart before read­ing 
*move where you are sit­ting after read­ing each page so that your read­ing moves you around a cir­cle 
*per­form a nam­ing cer­e­mony. the book needs a name (not a title). Give it a name that gives you the pos­si­bil­ity for a more per­sonal rela­tion­ship with the book. 
*Cre­ate a fam­ily his­tory for the book 
*write alter­na­tive chap­ter titles in col­ored ink under each black and white chap­ter 
*change male pro­nouns to a non­sense word like “zerp” 
*write a fic­ti­tious author biog­ra­phy on the inside of the front cover 
*write a fic­ti­tious reader biog­ra­phy on the inside of the back cover 
*make a lit­tle shoe box room for your book to sleep in at night. Call it the book’s pri­vate quar­ters. 
*call some­one and tell them your book has some­thing to say to them 
*place your book in the fun­ni­est spot in your home 
*after your book has resided on a funny spot, carry it to a seri­ous place and have it stare at the seri­ous­ness that needs loos­en­ing 
*attach a light to your book. place it under your bed for one night with the light on. Con­sider where you will arrange for it to shine 
*pur­chase or make a mask for the book to wear 
*write a let­ter to the tree that gave its life for the book 
*write a para­graph about what­ever comes to mind and then ran­domly place it in the book as a sur­pris­ing spe­cial edi­tion 
*take your book to a library so it may visit other friends. Intro­duce the book to other books it may not know 
*plan to mail the book to your­self at the end of this course. con­sider this a vaca­tion for the book. 
*encour­age the book to have an out of body expe­ri­ence. 
*sing any sen­tence in the book 
*tell a joke to the friend, but when you get to the punch­line, pull out a sen­tence form the book pre­vi­ously writ­ten down and read it. Explain that this was home­work. 
*send out a press release describ­ing the hole in your book and what is hap­pen­ing to it in a San Fran­cisco doc­toral pro­gram. try to make some news 
*Tell Oprah about any of this activ­ity and explain why it pro­vides the only hope left for chang­ing the world 
*Send video of these oper­a­tions to Stephen Col­bert 
*When you fin­ish read­ing the book, have a “The End” party.

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