What experiences have shaped you into the person you are today? In this blog parade, I invite you to embark on a journey of discovery with this question, exploring what topics might reside in your own living library.
You may have heard of them: Living Libraries. Places where not books, but people can be borrowed. Places where you can have an open conversation with someone who is willing to talk about their life, experiences, or a specific identity. Places where interested, non-judgmental, listening conversations can arise about things we might otherwise never learn about in our everyday environments.
A person is shaped by a unique, diverse, colorful world of experience, which makes us exactly the person we are today. A person with their own unique Self-acting force©. as
Business consultant for healthy work cultures and
Leadership Coaching I am convinced that we can activate this power much more easily if we are aware of its components. One way to find out what is in your
Self-Healing Force© The key is to ask yourself what shapes and has shaped you in your life. The brilliant part: once you know it and show it, opportunities for connection with yourself and other people who have gone down similar or completely different paths emerge. It offers the possibility for mutual understanding, connection, and development.
I started this blog parade as part of a blog parade call from Judith Peters.
The Content Society developed.
What is a blog parade?
Anyone who wants to can write something on the topic „Me, a Living Library: Call for a Blog Parade.“
You write and publish your article (e.g., on your website) and link to this blog post you are currently reading in your introduction.
The result: You write a great blog post that your target audience will enjoy reading. More new people will click on your blog and learn about you and your offerings. And: You'll see what others are writing about it and how they view the topic of this blog parade.
The
Blog parade is limited: You can participate until Sunday, June 22, 2025.
This is how you participate in this blog parade
- Write a post about „I, a living library“ in the form of a somewhat more detailed list, similar to what you would expect for an overview of books in a library: Book Title, brief summary with 2-3 sentences, and 2-3 keywords.
- Link to the blog parade „I, a living library“in your introduction
- Once you have published your blog post: Comment here below the blog post with a short text and the link to your own blog post
- For social networks, you can use the hashtag #IchAlsLebendeBibliothek Use.
Try to keep it brief per book:
- Title of the book
- This is a brief summary of the content in two to three sentences.
- 2–3 keywords.
Later, you could still decide to write a more detailed article about individual books, but that's not necessary.
The blog parade ends on Sunday, June 22, 2025. Until then, you can leave your post for my blog parade here in the comments section!
By the way, it's a blog post that can grow over time, just like life. It doesn't matter if the first version lists only 2 or already 10 or 20 „books.“.
Questions for your blog parade
Your library should encourage questions and pique the interest of your readership. At the same time, it's an opportunity for others to discover commonalities with you. Thus, an entry in your library could very well be the decisive factor in why a new client chooses you over a competitor. Who knows, perhaps such thematic connections could even arise with people who would never have met each other otherwise in life, „out there“? If there's a topic that you're passionate about (for me, for example, sexualized violence against women and
Femicideswould also be a book worth having in your personal library.
Here are a few guiding questions for inspiration that can help you search for the most exciting book titles.
- What makes you „you“?
- What perspectives do you bring that are foreign to others?
- I could trigger an „aha!“ moment in others in the field of providing information and explanations.
- What topics are you particularly committed to?
- Which labels do you frequently encounter that you don't (quite) feel belong to?
- Is there a life situation you've experienced that is hard for others to imagine?
- Was there a break, a failure, a crisis, a new beginning in your life and what did you make of it?
- Is there anything in your life that others rarely talk about?
- Why might you have been stigmatized or admired?
- What are you not immediately showing the world?
You're welcome to ask and answer your own questions, of course! Nothing is required, anything is allowed 😉
One more tip: If you think you can't think of anything else, ask yourself the following question or have someone ask you: „What else?“ My favorite question Wink
I'm looking forward to your blog post!
Dear Lorena,
Just in the nick of time, I discovered your great blog parade. Thank you for the inspiration to think about current and past reading pleasures. I'm already looking forward to expanding my reading list with other recommendations.
Warmest regards
Carina
Dear Carina,
Thank you very much for your great contribution to my blog parade!
There are some book recommendations for me as well. Thanks for those 🙂 and I'm sure if you were to put your life chapters into books, they would come out with equally exciting titles and stories.
Kindest regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena, what a lovely idea. I wanted to let it mature a bit, and now I know, we women are all living libraries. We are allowed to rediscover and show this. I thank you from my heart for nudging me towards this beautiful reflection: https://evahelms.de/lebendige-bibliothek/
Dear Eva,
Ah, what a wonderful article, with many truths in it. Archivist of one's own books. Yes, I know that too. And as I was reading, I immediately discovered a few books in the archives, e.g., Kriegsenkelin.
Thank you for your great contribution to my blog parade!
Best regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena, what a great topic. It took me a while to understand what it was about, but now I'm a fan – of my own library and the idea of a „Living Library.“ Thanks for the inspiration.
Warm regards
Sylvia
https://www.sylvia-tornau.de/ich-eine-lebende-bibliothek/
Dear Sylvia,
Ah, how wonderful that you're back too! Great 😀 And thank you for letting me and others peek „into your life“ through these. And even better, packaged so well into genres. The quotes you provide for each book here are so touching!
A truly diverse and extensive library.
Thanks for sharing!
Best regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena, it was fun participating in your blog parade again this time. I like that this library can be expanded at any time, just like in the last blog parade.
Warm regards
Alexandra
https://alexandrabohlmann.com/lebende-bibliothek-was-ich-als-kreative-chaotin-gelernt-habe/
Dear Alexandra,
How wonderful that you've given me and others insight into your exciting and extensive, but also very personal, „collection of experiences, aha moments, and self-experiments.“ It bears witness to a truly lived life with all its ups and downs. And even in this brief glimpse, I've already discovered and learned quite a bit. And I really see myself in the loving words about the creative chaos.
Thank you for this beautiful article!
Best regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena,
As a book lover, I find the idea of seeing one's life as a collection of books inspiring. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to reflect and share! Here is my contribution:
https://kassia-l-hill.de/ich-eine-lebende-bibliothek/
I'm curious to see how others have implemented this exciting idea.
Warm regards
Kassia
Dear Kassia,
I'm so happy you're participating! Every article I've read so far has been completely unique, not just in content. And I think that's one of the wonderful things about blog carnivals.
A nice line of reasoning with those few tattered issues or never-finished chapters. Yes, I have something like that in my library too.
Thanks for the tour of your wonderfully genre-organized shelves and the chance to flip through some of your pages.
Kindest regards,
Lorena
A somewhat ironic review of „Katja's Life Skills Series"
Now also available as paperbacks in a practical slipcase!“
https://nachtlan.de/eine-lebende-bibliothek/
Dear Katja,
What a great idea to present the whole thing like an advertisement for a book or a book series. I laughed a lot, the truths you share so bluntly are absolutely spot on. Thanks for these moments!
Thank you for this exciting pocketbook collection in a practical slipcase as a contribution to my appeal!
Best regards,
Lorena
P.S.: I also wanted to post the comment under your article, but every time I clicked on "comment," my browser downloaded some .php file. So I don't know if it worked :/
Dear Lena, what an exciting idea for a blog parade! Here's my contribution:
https://angela-carstensen.de/lebende-bibliothek/
It was really fun to imagine myself in book pile form 😀
Best regards,
Angela
Dear Angela,
Isn't it fascinating how many books are inside us? 🙂
Exactly: No two libraries are the same! Each is unique. Just like us humans.
Thank you for participating and giving me and others a glimpse into your personal library! And it seems we have some topics in common. That gives us something to talk about at the next TCS Meetup 😀
Kindest regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena
I'm happy to participate in your blog parade again this year. Although I found the task not quite as easy as I thought while writing 😉 ... Thank you for this topic. You can find my contribution here: https://edithgould.ch/ich-eine-lebende-bibliothek/
Warm greetings from Switzerland,
Edith
Dear Edith,
Thank you very much for your wonderful articles in response to my blog parade!
Yes, whenever we get to deal with which experiences have shaped us, it's often not so easy at first. But this is also an article that can grow 🙂
Beautifully said: „Our experiences can be an inspiration for someone else – or a warning, a glimmer of hope. In the best case, they will bring us closer to each other.“ And your genre classifications, a totally brilliant idea 😀
Best regards,
Lorena
Dear Lorena, I was happy to follow your call and have given some thought to this interesting topic. I wish you many more participants!
Here is my contribution, which led me to a new insight:
http://steffi-fleischer.com/2025/05/20/meine-lebendige-bibliothek/
LG Steffi
Dear Steffi,
How wonderful that you're participating in my blog parade! Such a beautiful article, and I've found one or two similarities too 🙂
I'm really excited about your books 😉
Kindest regards,
Lorena