Thanksgiving is day for family, football and food, but it’s also about giving thanks, for our family, our friends and for the blessings we enjoy. For this holiday edition of Thoughtful Thursday, we want to hear about books we are thankful for. Please comment on a book you are grateful you read.
I’ll start with two. I’m grateful that I got to read Louise Erdrich’s book The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse when I did. At that time in my life, I felt betrayed by my church, I was traveling for my father’s funeral and, in general, feeling spiritually bereft. That strange and lyrical book reminded me that the trappings of faith, like organized religion, are just that, trappings, and that a spiritual connection is both simple and deep.
On the lighter side, although maybe on the same theme, I am so grateful that Terry Pratchett wrote a Discworld book called Small Gods. It made me think about religion and again, faith, in a different way, and I laughed out loud while I was doing it.
Those are two of mine. What are yours? As always, one random commenter with a U.S. address will chose a book from our Stacks. And, enjoy your day!
I was having a hard time choosing one or even two books, then I realized I am grateful for Impervious by Laura Kirwan. My review of Impervious on Goodreads prompted Laura to ask me to beta read her second book, Crushed. Beta reading was so much fun! I feel like I helped make this book even better, and I am so excited that Crushed is now out.
That’s a great story, Susan! I’ll have to catch up on them both.
The ‘heroine’ of Impervious and Crushed is a 50 year old woman with white hair, bad knees, no magic, and a wicked saucepan.
I love her already!
I’m thankful for every book that has given me pleasure, and thankful as well for so many that have special memories or that have a personal attachment, such as the copy of The Hobbit my father handed me in the book department at Sibley’s department store a year before he died, telling me “You’re going to like this.” But at this particular time in my life, I’m thankful for The Circus Train, an absolutely gorgeous and brilliant novella-length lyric essay by Judith Kitchen, my long-time friend and writing mentor who died last month from a lengthy illness. A painfully beautiful mediation on life and memory everyone should read and then re-read (and then read her other collections of essays as well). And I’m thankful as well for the echo and evidence of her teaching and her voice in all my own writing.
Well, I’m obviously thankful for all books and for being able to read etc. I don’t know of any books that truly changed my life because of what was in them though many have made bad times more tolerable and others have lifted me out of blue moods. So I’ll just choose the ones that started it all for me, The Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell for getting me so into reading that relatives started buying books for me as gifts and Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster (found in the attic in a large box of dad’s books which I of course then devoured) which turned me on to science fiction and thus on to fantasy.
I’d have to say it’s collections of books–series by authors that really impacted me: Elizabeth Peters because she wrote Gothic, Mystery, and…she dared to mix in humor and silliness with her cozies. I think I learned from her what a cozy is and that it’s okay to write humor.
Patricia Briggs because she mixed mystery, romance and fantasy in When Demons Walk
Frank Tuttle because he writes fantasy that stays true to many of the cozy rules without being too cozy.
Books RULE.
April, if you live in the USA, you win a book of your choice from our stacks.
Please contact me (Marion) with your choice and a US address. Happy reading!
Woot! Thank you!