The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid.
— Jane Austen

Lately, as I look for potential ideas to focus my daily thank you on, I find myself going to the Chasing Happy Blog.  This month her focus has been to share something that you’re grateful for each day, and each day there is a prompt.  Today’s is “a book”.

I’m a reader by nature.  I enjoy reading.  When I was a kid reading was the great escape.  I’d have three or four books going at once and be able to keep up with the action in each one.  I don’t have a Kindle. My Amazon Prime membership is worth its weight in gold as I continue to buy books–free 2-day shipping, yeehaw!  There is something about cracking the spine that makes me happy.  Feeling the weight of the book in my hands makes me feel like reading is an extension of my hands, arms, body.   It simply feels good!

Today I’d like to thank just a few of the authors of books that have kept me engaged, entertained and enthusiastic about the written word over the course of my lifetime.

• The Great Brain (series) by John D. Fitzgerald
• Any Judy Blume book
• In Dubious Battle, The Moon Is Down, John Steinbeck
• The Osterman Weekend, The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Matlock Paper by Robert Ludlum
• Water Witches, Midwives, TranSister Radio, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
• Harry Potter Series by…if you don’t know who wrote these, you’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years
• Murder At The Washington Cathedral, Murder in Georgetown, or any other Margaret Truman Mystery
• Bookends, The Beach House by Jane Green