I'll offer up something a bit gentler, Martha - I am re-falling-in=love-with M.F.K. Fisher. Although she was best known for being a food writer (one of her most famous books is The Art of Eating), I am currently reading Sister Age, a collection of vignettes about, well, age.
Reading this book, I am beginning to understand those writers I truly love. They are the writers who do not need clever wordplay or creative similes to make a point; they are the writers who love words themselves, who do not need a phrase when the right word will do. (Hmm...they are the writers who are strongest where I am most weak.)
Fisher is a joy to read because there are no rough edges a all. She writes what she means, each word leads smoothly to the next. Her writing is clean and lovely.
Someone at another site spoke recently of books as investments for retirement. To that end I've gathered all of my anthologies and "complete works of" in one area, not to be sold or tossed. I think I will have to get a couple of good volumes of Fisher for that shelf.
