After listening to him speak for the better part of an hour, there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty about David Gessner: He knows how to entertain. Compared to Tayari Jones, Gessner presented himself as someone who you would want to talk to regardless of his work as an author. Even though the topic of Gessner's work, My Green Manifesto and The Tarball Chronciles, were not topics that I usually find entertaining, he was able to captivate my attention from the moment he started speaking. The opening video he showed from his “trailer” for My Green Manifesto also helped set the stage for the night. After looking around on YouTube for that video, I was able to find more proof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuNjEs8mdrA) that Mr. Gessner is a story teller and a great one at that.
Throughout the evening, Gessner made by great points through his story-telling, but the one which I found the most fascinating was that of the “hypocritical environmentalist”. Gessner clearly understood that in order for changes to be made to better the environment, we must also change how we think about environmentalist. Usually telling someone to be a hypocrite would be a terrible idea, but considering the shape of things right now, any kind of forward progress is worthwhile. I also enjoyed how Gessner poked fun at the many environmentalists that drearily state we have ruined everything and the world is going to end soon.
Overall, I had a great time at the reading and I wish more authors would take a page from Gessner and entertain the audience instead of just trying to push their next book. The way in which Gessner read the book helped the audience better understand how passionate he is about the area, but at the same time he understands that it is not the top problem on everyone’s list. I enjoyed the stories that Gessner told and because of that I was also able to understand and appreciate the meaning behind each one.
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