The M-W Word of the Day today is “galumph” — a fine word to be sure, but the quote they used to illustrate it is from Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, one of my favorite recent reads from one of my favorite authors. There are the authors whose books you read on a recommendation from a friend, because they were a gift, or because they were well-reviewed. But there is something special about walking into a bookstore, browsing the shelves aimlessly, picking out a book by an author completely unknown to you, buying it anyway (you can always sell it back), and then falling madly, totally in love with the words. Lethem was like that for me — I don’t think he’s perfect, but as the song goes “with all your faults, I love ya still. It had to you be you, wonderful you, it had to be youuuuuuuuu!”