So Where's the Book? (Part 1)

After I announced that my sister Aie was converting our parents' old house in the province into a public library, friends and relatives from everywhere have been sending me boxes and boxes of books. My friend, Lucy, from Palm Springs, California, mailed a big balikbayan box of her own collection.

Trouble is, I have first access to all these books and unable to help myself, I take a few (okay, heaps) to read before sending them to Aie. It feels like bookstores are suddenly sprouting in my house and I “own” them all!

I never doubted the endlessness of grace, but this is like unprecedented manna storm from heaven!

One of the books I took from Lucy's box was The Miracle of the Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans.

The title intrigued me. Unfortunately, it was not about The Christmas Box at all! It was the backstory of The Christmas Box.

It tells of how The Christmas Box book was written by the author as an expression of love for his daughters. He made 20 photocopies of it as gifts to other members of his family and close friends. It wasn't meant to be published. But before he knew what hit him, his relatives who read the story, and relatives of relatives, and relatives of friends, and friends of friends were photocopying the story and sending them to many others. Their common comment: they were inspired by the story.

Quickly, he decided to self-publish through a small-town printing shop. The sales moved faster than lightning, and soon, the book made history by becoming simultaneously the #1 hardcover and paperback book in the US! There was a great deluge, not unlike the time of Noah, of orders, letters and calls. The national press and the town's public officials got into the fray, and the latter erected a monument that relates to the story.

Since then, more than ten million copies of The Christmas Box have been printed. It's the wildest-dream-of-every-beginning-writer-come-true.

But where is the book? I rummaged through Lucy's box but The Christmas Box wasn't there. Frantic, I called Lucy but she thought I was talking Greek!

I combed all the bookstores in my neighborhood and in the neighborhood of others—nada, nada, nada. I emailed friends and foe to lend me their copy, but nobody seems to have heard of the book. I have a trauma from online purchasing.

In this country, we call this bitin! Rough translation: cliffhanger.

So where's the book? (to be continued)