Gratitude

What book or author are you most thankful to have discovered?
Have you read everything they’ve written? Reread them?
Why do you appreciate them so much?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. readers and friends. If you don’t live in the U.S., have a great day as well. Before I answer this week’s question, I want to express my gratitude to awesome book bloggers who have introduced to me new authors and books. This year alone, thanks to the many tweets and comments from book bloggers, I have discovered Stewart O’Nan, whose body of works will fuel many a dark, wintry weekends to come. Hemingway is another author whose books are overdue to be read. The summer trip to Paris prompted me to read A Moveable Feast, and that it reminds me what sensory overload Paris is, even at Hemingway’s time. One of the most prominent prose stylist and story-teller I have discovered is Wallace Stegner, whose Crossing to Safety, now a One City/One Book selection at the San Francisco Public Library, is one of the best books I have read this year. Although the recent A Shooting Star doesn’t live up to my expectation in terms of the story, the writing is nonetheless contemplative, fine, and majestically quiet. I’m saving Angle of Repose and Bird Spectator for later. Hilary Mantel, William Trevor, Maggie O’Farrell, and even Truman Capote and Ayn Rand—are authors whom I read for the very first time because of book bloggers’ recommendations. I tend to spread out the works over time so it’s very rare that I’ll repeat the author within a year.