Full of surprises
I love to read, love books as physical objects, think that a book is one of the greatest possible gifts, and yet, I am very hard to buy books for. Some of that is explained by the beginning of the sentence – I love to read, I do so voraciously, and so if there is a book that I am interested in reading, I am likely to buy or borrow it on my own. Combine this with the fact that I’m a traditionally published writer, and traditional publishing values blurbs and endorsements, and so now I get books even before they’re published, and, well, you see where this is going.
So a thing I really appreciate is a great surprise book. By this, I mean a book I didn’t know about before it was given to me. For example, for my birthday this year, a friend gave me Wyl Menmuir’s The Draw of the Sea. I’d never heard of the book or the author, and even though I’m working on a project that brushes up against some of the topics covered in the book, it hadn’t shown up in any of my searching. And it’s lovely. I’m about halfway through right now, and yes, I’ve marked some pages and sections that I’ll come back to for research, but also, it’s just been a pleasure to read so far. Menmuir’s love and fascination with his topic really comes through.
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