Is there a favorite book in your library that you'd care to share a personal story about? Whether it's about the circumstances under which you read it or how it affected you? Extra points if it's a book obscure to many readers.

Robin Sloan Well, this isn't quite what you're asking, but I always smile when I look at my copy of LIGHT by M. John Harrison because it has this hugely enthusiastic blurb from Neil Gaiman on the cover that *absolutely sold me on the book*. I'd never heard of Harrison, never heard of LIGHT, but Gaiman's praise was so solid that I thought, "Okay, I need to give this a shot." And it's since become one of my favorite books of all time, and Harrison one of my favorite authors. I always think about this when I hear people talking about blurbs, maybe questioning their effectiveness; they really *do* sell books sometimes, and sometimes they form a bridge to an important reading experience indeed.

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