Abook-averse friend sent me Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven this week, in which she wrote: “Thank you for inspiring me to develop a love for reading.” She’s a sucker for notes, and I’m a sucker for books. The two loves relate but rarely collaborate in our friendship; I’m bad at responding to her notes, and she’s still promising to read a novel I gave to her last year. This gesture, an inscription that told me a book reminded her of our friendship, was perfect.
Readers and writers both need their “why”s: why to read a thing, and why to write a thing. Blurbs on the backs of books can help readers understand what a story is about. But a dedication is a tribute to an author’s seriousness; it must sum up their reason for writing on just one page and, in many cases, in just one sentence.
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