Musing Mondays – 3/26/12

Musing Monday is a weekly event hosted at Should Be Reading. All you have to do to join in is answer the question posted on SBR’s blog!  Today’s question:

Have you ever found a book out of the blue, read it, and then had it be surprisingly good – one that stuck with you for years? If so, what book was it?

                       

All the time!  I am a big fan of used bookstores because I can be flexible about purchasing new authors based on the back of the book only.  I have found the authors Christopher Moore, Charles de Lint, Shannon Hale and JK Rowling by randomly picking up their books and hoping for the best.  The Moore book was Island of the Sequined Love Nun and I picked that up in the airport when I ran out of reading material.  I had no idea what to expect and just enjoyed the hell out of it.  De Lint was The Onion Girl and Shannon Hale was The Goose Girl, I carried both of those books with me for years before I finally dug in and wondered what the hell was wrong with me that it took me so long to get to them.  I have been collecting all three of those author’s books ever since.  Harry Potter, well, I grabbed the Sorcerer’s Stone to read to the kids I was babysitting at the time.  It looked like fun and Crown Books had stacks of hard covers on sale, so I thought they might enjoy it.  Dang, I still have that book and it has been read so many times and by so many different people, I guess it “wins”.  But I highly recommend library bookstores, goodwill or anywhere you can easily and inexpensively try a new author – you NEVER know what you will find!!