For many years now I have been a subscriber to the Library of America. LOA books are the only thing I truly collect. I have over 200 volumes; the LOA covers a wide range of topics and authors. The writings of America’s founders, slave narratives, reporting on wars and on civil rights, sermons and poetry, and some of the best fiction ever written. Mark Twain to Philip K. Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne to Shirley Jackson, James Fenimore Cooper to Kate Chopin, Henry James to Philip Roth, the best of American writers are represented in the LOA. Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Singer, Thurber… The list goes on and on.

And look what I got from LOA today. OMG, I know what I’m going to be reading for the rest of this year and into the next.

Yes, it’s Elmore Leonard, who was not just a great storyteller, but a great writer, period.

And this is just the beginning. There are two more Leonard volumes to come.

Anyone who has ever read anything written by Elmore Leonard knows that he writes the best dialogue ever. Best. Dialogue. Ever.