Image Links to Challenge Site

One of my Friday Fugues in 2011 was devoted to letters. So you can imagine my excitement when I learned of Melwyk’s challenge.

Whether real letters…

Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964 The Story of a Remarkable Friendship (Ed. Martha Freeman, 1995)
Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road (1970)
Yann Martel’s What is Stephen Harper Reading? (2009)
Harriet Russell’s Envelopes (2005)
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Father Christmas Letters (1976)

Or fictional letters…

Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983)
Jean Webster’s Dear Daddy Long-Legs (1912)
Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine Series (1991-)
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1983)
Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist (2011)
Rosy Thornton’s More Than Love Letters (2006)
Joey Comeau’s Overqualified (2009)
Lee Smith’s Christmas Letters (1996)

I love reading them!

There were 72 books on my GoodReads Letters’ shelf when I finished that project and there are 97 101 116 now, so you can see I’ve found a few more.

I don’t have a reading list yet, but I plan to read at least four books of letters in what remains of 2013:
1. Daniel Glattauer’s Love Virtually (2006; Trans. Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch, German 2011)
2. Tamara Levine’s But Hope is Longer: Navigating the Country of Breast Cancer (2012)
3. Dear Marian, Dear Hugh: The MacLennan-Engel Correspondence (Ed. Christl Verduyn)
4. Intimate Strangers: The Letters of Margaret Laurence & Gabrielle Roy (Ed. Paul G. Socken)

How about you? Do you love reading other people’s mail?