Win a copy of An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer

I was handed An Uncommon Education, Elizabeth Percer's extraordinary new novel by her editor, Maya Ziv, who also happened to be a former assistant of my agent. Maya had saved my life when I almost botched sending in the right manuscript, and so I was willing to look at anything she wanted me to--and this book was astonishing. About a young woman's coming of age, and how she begins to learn how to find and figure out what really matters in life, An Uncommon Education is the kind of book you want to hand to all your friends. And all this week, we are having a giveaway! there are five copies to hand out and all you have to do is comment on Elizabeth's  question below. The first five commenters will win a copy of the book! Please email me your email to reach you at carleavitt@hotmail.com.

People have asked me if the title for this novel was the original one. And the answer is no! The idea for the title came from the idea that we all have uncommon educations--not uncommon in the sense of rare or privileged, but uncommon in the sense of being unique to our own particularly chosen paths. Far more important than the knowledge I gained in school were those moments of informal learning that happened along the way -- my mother reading Irish poetry to me as a toddler; my father telling and retelling me stories of his childhood in Jerusalem; joining an underground Shakespeare Society when I should have been studying more at college. How have you learned to craft a life around what is uncommon to you?