Books should make you happy.

Wait—what? Does that mean I think that only happy books are worth reading? Of course not. But let me tell you a story:

My grandpa spent his final years in a nursing home, dying by very slow degrees of Parkinson's. I honestly don't have a worst enemy, but if I did have one, it's a fate I wouldn't wish on him. My grandpa couldn't walk or feed himself or even talk for the most part. But what he could do was read. He read stacks and stacks of bodice-ripping historical romance novels with over-the-top covers and guaranteed happy endings. Pure escapism, by most people's standards, and nothing my college professors (I was an English major) would have called great literature. But those over-the-top historical romance novels brought enjoyment to my grandpa's final days. They made him happy, and to me that makes them worth every bit as much as War and Peace.

Not that I'm knocking War and Peace or books without guaranteed happily-ever-afters. Sad stories are part of the human condition; of course they should be told, too. Tragic stories can make us gain in empathy or make us grateful for what we have. Books like Uncle Tom's Cabin can inspire us to abolish slavery. What I do think is that books should make the world a little better for having been written— be agents of light, rather than dark. Books can challenge us, make us think, inspire us to change the world— or just give us a few hours' much-needed break from reality. In all cases, we're left a little bit better off than when we first read the words Chapter One— which for me, means happy.

That's what I want my books to do for you.

Other things that I'm about, in no particular order: