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Typically, a book is published and gets one season in the sun. Eventually, you write another book, and maybe your old books get a bump, but my books seem to keep being discovered and recommended to new people of all ages.

I think ever since I started to read, there have been favorite novels for different stages of my life. And one is never bumped out of place to yield to another. Instead, I just add to my favorite shelves.

With a hardcover, you get two chances, a year apart, for the book to make an impact - often with a new cover featuring artfully crafted snippets of reviews, a new marketing campaign and maybe even a new publisher.

It breaks my heart that we are always being nudged toward the most recently published books, when so many worthy books have gone unexplored.

I am always most excited about the newest material I am doing, and other songs get put back on the shelf or dropped.

I guess there is also an element of deliberate change involved. Each of my books has been, at least from my point of view, radically different from the last.

So I think the fans will be totally interested in the new developments and delighted that the old developments are still there and that they can still see some of the old characters maybe reappear.

Some books are a revelation. They come along at just the right time for just the right reasons. They become heart books and soul books.

Occasionally, I hear grumbles about everything being a series or a trilogy, but apart from the question of them maybe selling more books, I think that there's a real problem in trying to introduce a new world or a new concept while also getting your reader to pay close attention to your characters and themes.

I keep an ongoing list of my fifty favorite books, which I recalibrate whenever I discover a new one that seems to demand a spot there.