“The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World” is not only a best-selling memoir documenting Eric Weiner’s journey across the globe to explore the various definitions of happiness.
At least for Kristel Silang, a 24-year-old blogger, it is also a prize she claimed for donating a dozen books through #TheBookProjectManila.
In the project, begun in July 2011, you choose a book that’s been lying around, write a personal note or description on it to go with the official hashtag, and then leave it at a random place.
To link up to the whole project, you take a picture of the book at the random location and upload the photo to your Instagram account, again with “#TheBookProjectManila.”
The movement has gotten new life since migrating from Tumblr, where it began, to Instagram. It has gathered over 60 posts from some 30 donors since the big move.
Unfamiliar
Some are not used to the whole procedure, said Silang, recounting her experience just weeks ago with the Bob Ong hit “ABNKKBSNPLAko?!”
“The Bob Ong book was the one I left at a fast-food chain. I just left it on top of the dining table. Some people noticed that I sat down only to take a picture of the book and then moved out,” she said.
“When I checked on it, the crew had already cleaned up the table and left the book. That meant somebody already ate there but did not get it.”
While Silang left her other books at other public spots, among them an ATM booth, Poncy Hanilap, a 21-yearold design student, chose to leave his donation (“Always the Sun,” by Neil Cross) at Local Edition Cofee and Tea in Legaspi Village, a hot spot for the project just a stone’s throw away from his school.
But that did not spare him from the confusion.
“I really felt weird to just go in and leave with a book,” he recounted. “On my first try, I went to the cashier and bought two slices of banana bread, and asked where I can swap… I actually panicked while picking up a book.”
He took Elsie Aidinoff’s “The Garden.” Silang noted that the books she gave away were mostly those she had used when she was still studying, bought on impulse years ago, or gotten from events for free, so she did not have a hard time dispatching them.
But the process of selecting a book to let go can also be difficult, said Alanna Tan, a 27-year-old Malaysian now based in Manila. “For certain books, it was hard due to the emotional attachment, what I was going through when reading them. But like life, sometimes we have to learn to let go.”
She gave away six books and took home three, including Mitch Albom’s popular “Tuesdays with Morrie.”
It was also detaching from the book that made picking out hard for Hanilap. “I often ask: What if I were in the story? What would I do? Which character would I be?” he explained. “So when I let go of a book, I feel like I’m letting go of a small piece of me.”
But in the end, if the books have already taught him what he had to learn, they already served their purpose and should go, he noted.
“#TheBookProjectManila is smart and fun and simple,” said Hanilap. For Tan, it is “a win-win solution … I share my books with other book-lovers and in exchange I get to read new titles for free.”
The biggest excitement is in the possibility that your gift of sorts can make someone else’s day better, which is exactly what happened to one of the founders of the movement when she was in Switzerland—her day was salvaged by a book that someone left with a note at a train station.
The person refuses to be named by media because she notes that other people helped shape the project, but she has donated books, too.
“Some say it’s not like Switzerland in Manila and people will just throw away the book or sell it once they find it,” said Silang. “I’d like to be more hopeful than that since it’s nice to think that you made someone’s day through doing this.”
That ideal scenario came immediately for Tan: “What made me smile was when two girls picked out one of my books from the shelf at Local Edition. They did not realize the owner was just sitting next to them.”
Silang can consider Tan her own success story, too, because she just tagged Tan on Facebook, hoping she would join in. Hanilap also learned about the initiative online, through an Instagram post.
An encouraging note is that all three plan to repeat the project again. “I’m already picking out the books to give,” said Hanilap.
Love of reading
#TheBookProjectManila wants to pan out to the whole reading culture in Metro Manila. It wants to encourage people to start reading or get back to it, which is what happened to Tan, Silang and Hanilap.
“I started collecting books when I once read a novel by James Patterson, my favorite author, and was inspired to write my own,” explained Hanilap. “Then I realized I’d be a better writer if I was a reader, like, a legit reader.”
Tan’s parents raised her to read; she lost the habit in university and learned it again when she relocated to the Philippines, where her place did not have Internet access. Meanwhile, Silang began reading when she was in Grade 3, leafing through her grandmother’s collection of comics.
All three hope that their books would be appreciated by their takers. “I hope the future owners will enjoy the books as much as I did,” said Tan. “That certain phrases in the book will jump out from their pages and inspire, touch and encourage; that the books will strengthen or rekindle the joy of reading and the power of the written form.”