The Mail I Get – Made My Day Edition

I was very touched and flattered by this email, so I had to share it with you:

I say Thank You for my discovery of reading. That might sound strange coming from a 51 year male whose wife has thousands of books in our house. But I have never read a book since I was forced to in high school, even then I'm not sure I actually did.

While my wife was looking at books at a tag sale my daughter was looking at Mr. Monk is Miserable, she put it down, after my wife purchased several books we were leaving when the man gave my daughter the book. It was very nice of him, but what happened next has changed my life.

My daughter read the book. And when she was done she said, Dad, I know you don't read, but please try reading this book. My wife reads hundreds of books a year and had never gotten me to pick up a book, but when my little girl asked me to, I did. I could not put the book down. It was so easy to read, problem was it was the 7th book. I have a lot of catching up to do. So for my birthday I got book #1, Christmas, books 2, 3, and 4. So reading the acknowledgments I saw your website, and got your email address, and just wanted to say thank you.

You know I'll be getting the rest of the series to read, and after that I'm sure reading is in my future.

Isn't that amazing? I am going to keep this email on my wall so that when the writing gets tough, I'll be reminded of readers like him, stop my whining, and press on.

 

14 thoughts on “The Mail I Get – Made My Day Edition”

  1. I found out years ago that getting someone to read could be as simple as finding something they like. It happened with a good friend forty plus years ago. He was one who’d been pushed along in school until he got old enough to quit.
    He didn’t like reading, but did like the original Star Trek show. I handed him a half dozen of the Bantam tie-ins and said, “Here’s some Star Trek you might like.” It caused him to get a love of reading and go on down the road to get his GED and on to college for some courses that helped him in his work. He went on to find his own favorite authors, mostly different from mine.

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  2. I always think that when I am reading one of your Monk books – that it is “easy” to read, and I mean that as a very high compliment! Your style is so straightforward but never boring. It’s deceptively simple! I was sad to hear that you won’t be writing them anymore but I will definitely give the new author a chance. 🙂

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  3. Wonderful! What a compliment! You changed his life for the better! I suspect this happens a lot with your books and is a reason why so many people want to contact you and bring you in on their projects.

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  4. Love-love-love this!
    My similar experience was at a 1990s S.F. con where I chatted with another Dark Shadows fan. I mentioned I had a lot of DS in-jokes in my 3rd novel that she might enjoy, but she said she never read and didn’t like reading. Being forced to read and do homework on books she didn’t like in high school had to do with it.
    But she bought the book as the lure of anything from a fav TV show overcame her resistance. The next convention she strolled by with two huge tote bags of paperbacks bought fresh from the dealer’s room. She let me know how much she liked my book and had gotten hooked on reading for pleasure, not a grade! ;0D

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