(30) My wife posted today that she’s grateful for Tillamook Mudslide ice cream. So am I!
(31) I’m grateful for the original Star Wars series for cultivating within me a deep and lifelong love for science fiction.
(32) I’m grateful for Michael Ende and his magnificent book The Neverending Story, which remains my favorite novel of all time, and showed me as a child just how powerful and moving a book can be.
(33) I’m grateful for Madeline L’Engle and A Wrinkle in Time for helping me to realize that one day, I would be a writer.
(34) I’m grateful for Ursula K. Le Guin and her masterful book The Dispossessed for showing me how the written word can make you feel you understand a fictional character from a completely alien culture better than you understand yourself.
(35) I’m grateful for Orson Scott Card and Ender’s Game for keeping me up until 4am and giving me one of the most incredible reading experiences of my life.
(36) I’m grateful for David Gemmell and his Drenai Series for moving me to tears with the inspiring heroism of his characters.
(37) I’m grateful for my childhood teachers who encouraged me to read and instilled in me a love of reading.
(38) I’m grateful for Terry Pratchett and his wonderfully entertaining Discworld books, which definitely helped me to become a funnier person.
(39) I’m grateful for Paperback Swap, which has been a wonderful tool for swapping books and building my personal library.
(40) I’m grateful for all of the wonderful books I have yet to discover.
(41) I’m grateful for Goodreads for helping me to organize and keep track of the books that I read, and to set reading goals.
(42) I’m grateful for the ability that I have to blog about my writing and my reading, something that didn’t really exist until just a couple of decades ago.
(43) I’m grateful for NaNoWriMo and the encouragement that it gives all of us to write things we didn’t think that we could.
(44) I’m grateful for Brandon Sanderson, his wonderful books, the positive influence that he is on the fantasy genre, and for the class he taught at BYU that both I and my wife were privileged to be able to take (though we didn’t know each other at the time).
