Authors, Books, and More--Oh MY!

Somehow I've let a lot of time pass without updating this blog. Whenever people ask me to list my favorite books, I always start with "To Kill a Mockingbird," because that book had such a powerful impact on me, but there are definitely others too. For me it's easier to list my favorite authors. I love anything written by Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Tyler. Just for fun I enjoy books by Tony Hillerman, but I wish he were still alive. I did get to hear him speak once at USU and wish I'd been braver to go up and meet him. I've always been very chicken about meeting people. Even people who aren't famous, I have a very hard time introducing myself to. I've always been envious of outgoing friends.

For instance, last year the artist Nancy Holt, came out to the Sun Tunnels. I drove clear out to see her, and even though I wrote a novel called Sun Tunnels and Secrets, featuring her artwork, I didn't dare introduce myself. I regret that. I almost got to meet Ray Bradbury. I waited in line for over a half-hour, but they finally decided that he didn't have time to sign our books. The same thing happened with Madeline L' Engle when I went to hear her speak and yet she couldn't sign books either. They even had us put our addresses on a list and she was going to send us her name on a bookplate, but that didn't happen.

Since then, I can only hope some of my local author friends become famous, a few already are. Robison Wells has had a lot of success and so has Jeffery Savage. Someday perhaps I can put a sign in our downstairs bedroom, that says Jeffery Savage slept here. On Thursday, I will go down to Salt Lake to a good friend's book launch--Marion Jensen's, Almost Super. It's bound to be very super. Another friend, that I kept forgetting to take my books to sign when I would see him, is James Dashner, whose book The Maze Runner is being made into a movie.

Whether famous or not, I'm blessed by my friendship with books, and my friendship with authors and aspiring authors. I get to each lunch quite often with Josi Kilpack (she has about a dozen books published). One thing I've discovered is that writers, famous or not, are just like anyone else. They may, even be pretty insecure like me.

I'm curious about what books others have loved. Some of the books I loved as a young child were: Harriet the Spy, all the Oz books, some of Jules Verne's, The Twenty-one Balloons, The Secret Garden, other Frances Hodgson Burnett books, and of course Nancy Drew. I know there were a lot more. I read almost constantly when I was young, and not nearly as much in my adulthood.