Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Book Giveaway
Bookwoman Book Club June 2022 Selection
2012 Great Group Reads; Winner of the Stonewall Award; March 2012 Indie Next List
Jeanette Winterson’s bold and revelatory novels have earned her widespread acclaim, establishing her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally best-selling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction classes.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the universe as a cosmic dustbin. It is the story of how a painful past, which Winterson thought she had written over and repainted, rose to haunt her later in life, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also a book about other people’s literature, one that shows how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft that supports us when we are sinking.
Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging — for love, identity, home, and a mother.
Reviews
“Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is raucous. It hums with a dark refulgence from its first pages . . . . Singular and electric . . . [Winterson’s] life with her adoptive parents was often appalling, but it made her the writer she is.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“A memoir as unconventional and winning as [Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit], the rollicking bildungsroman . . . that instantly established [Winterson’s] distinctive voice. . . . It’s a testament to Winterson’s innate generosity, as well as her talent, that she can showcase the outsize humor her mother’s equally capacious craziness provides even as she reveals cruelties Mrs. Winterson imposed on her. . . . To confront Mrs. Winterson head on, in life, in nonfiction, demands courage; to survive requires imagination. . . . But put your money on Jeanette Winterson. Seventeen books ago, she proved she had what she needed. Heroines are defined not by their wounds, but by their triumphs.” —Kathryn Harrison, New York Times Book Review
“Arresting and suspenseful . . . Offers literary surprises and flashes of magnificent generosity and humor.” —Valerie Sayers, The Washington Post Book World
Giveaway Details
Please use the form below to enter to win.
Entry period for the Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? book giveaway begins on May 2, 2022 and ends on May 15, 2022.
This book giveaway is only open to residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and all other US territories). You do not need to be a member of WNBA to enter. Entries will be accepted until 11:59 pm EST on May 15, 2021. Winner will be randomly selected.
The WNBA is the administrator of this giveaway, and Grove Atlantic is the sponsor. If you win, Grove Atlantic will receive your name and shipping address in order to send the book to you.
Good luck!
Are you interested in purchasing the book? You can buy Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? on Bookshop.org today and support independent bookstores.
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