Good books fill the reader with hope Second, a good book leaves you more grateful to be alive. You close the final pages of the book a little breathless, a little more in awe of the great and glorious world. The book may be tragic (Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson), moving (A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park), or goofy and nonsensical (The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber), yet it leaves you with a feeling you find difficult to express: amazement at the world, an awe for life, a gratitude for humanity and its quirkiness, its messiness, its vitality.
