A few weeks ago I was on vacation at my grandparents.

It was a lovely time or relaxing and visiting. One day while I was there, my grandpa walked over to me, set an open book on the end table next to me and said something like, “There’s a great description in there.”

I picked up the book and quickly found his marks. He was right! It was so true I had to read it aloud to my mom. Her first response was, “You should share that on your blog.”

So here it is. I don’t know anything about this author, so can’t recommend any of her books, but this description of a book was too good not to share.

“A story is not like a road to follow, I said, it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and the corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It has also a sturdy sense of itself, of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you. To deliver a story like that, durable and freestanding, is what I’m always hoping for.

~ Alice Munro

Doesn’t that describe a good book?