There are basically two types of readers: Those who want to be able to relate to what they read, and those who want to learn from what they read.
I'm off to Pennsylvania for a few days - back here Friday.
An email arrived the other day from something called “The Idea Center” and the headline read: “Nothing great was ever accomplished alone.” And immediately I thought of the books that are deemed ‘great’ and that were written, like most books, in solitude.
The best books of blah, blah, blah. Surely, many of them are very good books. But most of them have big publicity machines churning behind them. There is so much fine writing that doesn’t get that push and goes unheralded. I just picked up again Howard Norman’s I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place (2013) and, turning to the next to last chapter, read of a summer in Vermont – fevers, owls, a new well, calls from a wayward brother, viewings of Ken Burns’ Civil War – and was riveted. No fireworks, no hype, just an intelligent man (who appreciates the absurd) trying to make sense of this life through the everyday.
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven is Mitch Albom’s sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Which makes me wonder about the title of his next book. The Last Person You Meet in Heaven? The Influencers You Meet in Heaven? The Book Club You Join in Heaven (That Reads Only Mitch Albom Books)?
I gave a writing workshop at the Austin conference, after which a couple of students purchased my book. The next day I ran into one of them, and she looked a little frazzled. Someone, she said, had broken into her hotel room. She was out at the time, and had her purse and laptop on her. The thief took a few of her less valuable things. “But,” she added, “not your book.”