What did I learn while on book tour?

Dear Reader,

The paperback of How to Survive a Bear Attack is out on Tuesday. I’m thrilled with it. My publisher pulled together a beautiful package. The soft cover feels great in hand.

I filmed a short video to answer the question I am most often asked about this book—what did I learn from writing it?

After writing it, while touring, I learned something more important about the idea of “fighting” cancer. I explain here.

The short version: While on tour, I met so many people who have cancer, or love someone who has it. Many of us are tired of talking about a battle or a fight when it comes to the disease. We don’t want to go to war with our own bodies.

Increasingly, cancer is a chronic condition. More people are living longer with it. This is great news, but it also means that many would like a more peaceful way to exist.

I wrote about my search for better metaphors in How to Survive a Bear Attack. While on book tour, it was comforting to meet so many people who felt the same. This is what I love about a tour. It helps me understand how I am part of something larger.

And apologies for the backwards book cover in the video. I was born in the 1900s and have come to terms with being technologically imperfect.

Here is the cover the right way round.

Which brings me to a book I read recently and loved, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan.

This isn’t just a cute title for a book. The author makes a promise and keeps it. Hu details his life in the cities of China through the early 2000s until Covid. He works a series of low-wage jobs—all of which pay better than the money he can earn from writing.

I am not the only one who finds this book fetching. It has sold 2+ million copies in China and is working its way around the world. The edition I read was an elegant English translation by Jack Hargreaves.

What would it be like to live another life?

This book is a fascinating glimpse into gig work, like doing logistics in a warehouse, or delivering packages in a city of over 21 million people. At one point, Hu calculates that he needs to make 0.5 yuan every minute to stay viable. This means he must deliver a package every four minutes. After calculating the time lost for lunch and going to the bathroom, he concludes that he shouldn’t drink too much water while working.

Hu’s writing is sparse and sometimes wry. He spends more time on the mechanics of each job than reflecting on his feelings. It’s a bold choice that I loved for how it leaves room for a reader. The voice gave space for me to use my life experience to reach toward his. I knew the pain from his blisters, the bone tired/wired feeling after a night shift, and the numbness that comes from being a faceless drone to your customers.

Which leads me to what I love about reading a book like I Deliver Parcels in Beijing. It’s the same thing that I love about touring—both are a way to understand how I am part of something larger.

Yours in books,

Claire

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P.S.

• If you are in Canada, there is a new service called leslibraires.ca and booksellers.ca — they are working with 150+ independent bookstores to sell books online. They have fresh copies of the paperback of How to Survive a Bear Attack and many other fine books.
  

• In the US, a similar service is Bookshop.org, who also have new paperbacks of How to Survive a Bear Attack.
  

• Did you know my husband took my last name? A detail I didn’t include in my memoir. When the CBC asked for an essay about change, I realized it was time to write about it — When my husband changed his last name to mine
  

• ‘Regrets? Number one: smoking, an unmissable profile of British artist Tracey Emin and her two cats, Teacup and Pancake.
  

• For The Globe & Mail, I wrote about one of my first true loves — Zamboni Dreams [gift article].
  

• Books I Love is a monthly letter, it’s free (and always will be). I am a Canadian author named Claire Cameron. Thank you for reading.