Letter To A Stranger: Essays To The Ones Who Haunt Us edited by Colleen Kinder

(Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book!)

 

about book: (summary from Goodreads)

“A celebration of the adventure that is other people.” —Ariel Levy, author of The Rules Do Not Apply

Lauren Groff, Elizabeth Kolbert, Pam Houston, Pico Iyer, T Kira Madden, Gregory Pardlo, Maggie Shipstead, and Peter Orner are among the 65 writers who grapple with this mystery: How can an ephemeral encounter leave an eternal mark?
 
When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to “write a letter to a stranger who haunts you,” she opened the floodgates. The responses—intimate and addictive, all in the form of letters, all written in the second person—began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by today’s best literary minds are organized around such themes as Grati­tude, Wonder, and Farewell, and guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection.

Bestselling author Leslie Jamison, who provides the foreword, reveals she has been haunted for years by a traveling magician she met in Nicaragua. Journalist Ted Conover writes his missive to a stranger he met on a New Yorker assignment in Rwanda. From the story of Vanessa Hua’s shoe shopper in China to the tale of Michelle Tea’s encounter in a Texas tattoo parlor, these pieces are replete with observations about how to live and what to seek, and how a stranger’s loaded glance, shared smile, or question posed can alter the course of our lives. Moving and unforgettable, Letter to a Stranger is an irresistible read for any literary traveler and the perfect gift for anyone who is haunted by a person they met once but will remember forever.

my thoughts:

What a wonderful book! I loved Letter To A Stranger: Essays To The Ones Who Haunt Us, edited by Colleen Kinder. This is they type of book you can dip in and out of, depending on your mood. Or, the kind of book you can gobble up in one sitting, because you can't bring yourself to put it down. Either way, its a book you will want to read and relish. I just loved the concept - writing a letter to a stranger that we've encountered in some way and how that encounter affected us. I couldn't help but smile at the notion, because we all have these moments. These incidents with someone we don't know that somehow become HUGE moments in our lives, or memories that make us smile. I found myself immediately recalling memories from my past that warrant this idea - writing these folks a letter to let them know how much that moment with them meant to me. It sounds crazy, but it also sounds like something that should be done. Even if its a letter that you write in your journal as a keepsake to remember the moment and that person. What do you think? Do you have someone that fits that bill - a stranger who haunts you?

Letter To A Stranger is chock full of letters by a variety of authors who have penned their thoughts and memories to the ones who have haunted them ever since that chance encounter. Talk about fascinating. I just loved reading these letters and thinking about jotting down a few of my own. What a treat to read! This is one book I will definitely be gifting to friends and family. And, its one book I won't soon forget. I just loved it!

I would happily recommend Letter To A Stranger to anyone and everyone looking for their next great read - you will fall in deep with this one! Check it out!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book!