Diana Wynne Jones, or How Books Make My Heart Happy

This weekend, one of my favorite authors passed away. Diana Wynne Jones succumbed to her cancer and left the literary world with a bit of a void. On Facebook this morning I posted:

Rest in peace Diana Wynne Jones, your books make my heart happy and I don't think I will ever stop loving them. You will live on in their stories forever.

It seems like a bit of a strange thing to say, but I was only really introduced to her writing last year. I had seen the movie version of her fantasy novel Howl's Moving Castle over and over for a long time, and finally got around to reading the book. The differences were enormous and glaring, but knowing that she approved of the movie, I had to understand how the changes in the movie enhanced and altered the actual story. I found that, in the end, the changes didn't matter; the movie was the movie, and the book was the book. They were both beautiful and they both make my heart happy.

It's hard to say goodbye to someone whose work does such things to you. When Robert Holdstock died in 2009 I was heartbroken. One of the most difficult parts of dealing with the death of someone you admire but don't personally know is coming to terms with the fact that you won't be able to read new words from them. But one of the most rewarding things is knowing that they wrote some amazing books, and as long as their books exist they will never be gone.

Rest in peace, Diana. I'll look for you in the future in your old words.

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