Sorry: Your Speech Was Great, But I Can’t Read Your Book

  

 

Something unusual happened to me while listening to an author speak, at a temple filled with 1200 book-buying audience members. I decided not to read her book even though she delivered a strong presentation for a book I had purchased a copy of.

The book sounds quite good, and I support the author’s courage to speak out about loss and grief. I just can’t read it. Not now. Not ever.

It is not because the book will be heavy, emotional, sad, or even enraging that I refuse to read it. Understanding life from all vantage points is a valuable opportunity that is not to be wasted. But I can’t give the author what she wants.

The book, When We See You Again, is written by a mother who lost her son due to the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. He did not die that day, like 1200 other innocent beings who were at a music festival for peace. He was taken hostage and was senselessly killed nearly a year later.

The author, Rachel Goldberg-Polin has been interviewed by major media internationally for over three years. You have likely seen her more than once, on television and elsewhere. She is the face of our worst nightmare— of a parent living in agony, fearing for her child’s safety, begging for him to be saved, and then to be hit with his sudden, violent loss. She has not, understandably, stopped

So why won’t I read it? I don’t want to get what the author wants to give me: the weight of her pain, anguish, and loss.

It may sound selfish of me but she asked me to carry her burden, to feel some measure of her immense suffering. Is one’s grief going to become mine? Can I lift her grief by exposing myself to it? She walks in a rare circle, one that no one would ever seek to be a member of.

It is something I can’t explain. I could listen to her describe her mindset and world, shed tears, and feel love for her. But the moment she said she wrote this book to hopefully have each of us take on even a molecule of her anguish, I was counting myself out. 

She admitted it was not just for us to feel what she feels, but for us to somehow own it, to take the pain away from her. We simply can’t do that. Pain cannot be outsourced to others.

Only she can own her life’s events. We can understand quite easily that we don’t want to trade places with her and we would like to comfort her and help bring healing, if possible. But I can’t really place myself into her state of hell — it is not something I would choose to, nor could I really, do, knowing at any moment I can just step back into my own life.

I recommend people read her book if they are curious or supportive. But you can’t fulfill her mission or purpose for writing the book. I am sorry for your loss and for the world being screwed up, Rachel. Just don’t ask others to bare what you already know is seemingly unbearable.

 

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 6,200,000 page views. With 5,600+ posts over the past 15 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully) and (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/10-things-my-dog-taught-me-about-marketing-books). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, three times at BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association, Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, five times at Morgan James Publishing Red Carpet, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum