BEST AUTHOR BEST : MEGHAN DAUM [ 2 ]

.-  Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?

Ellen Conford was a young adult author whose books I remember as humorous in a satirical and slyly adult way.

One of the earliest I remember was '' Felicia the Critic,'' about a girl who had an opinion about everything and assumed everyone wanted to hear it.

Come to think of it, someone might have given me that book for a reason.

.-  Describe your ideal reading experience.

I guess ''ideal'' would be in a cozy cottage on some snowy mountain top with nary a Zoom meeting on the calendar.

Barring that, I do my best, or at least most concentrated, reading on airplanes.

When traveling, I used to enjoy eating alone at hotel bars with a book, not least, because it was a conversation starter.

But somewhere along the line, the book became a phone and conversations never got started.

I felt like if you were to read a book at a bar today, the book would almost look like a prop. How sad is that?

That might be the saddest sentence I've written all year.

.-  How are you thinking about replacing books you lost in the fire?

Funny you should ask. So many writers lost their homes and possessions in the fires. This gave me an idea.

What if we helped writers rebuild their libraries by connecting them with those who appreciate them the most - their readers? 

Surely, readers would love nothing more than to send their favorite books to their favorite writers.

The way I imagine it, writers would create registries of the books they miss the most and readers could either pick from the list or send a book of their own choosing, or both. Its a win/win.

Writers can begin to fill their shelves and readers get the pleasure of sharing books they love with writers they love.

Along the way, everyone discovers new books. I'm still figuring out the logistics, but I think this could be great.

.-  Everything is personal, so nothing is personal,'' you write in your book. What does that mean for a personal essayist?

That's from the final essay in the collection, which is also the newest essay. It wrestles with how first-person writing, a personal creative expression of any kind, has been sullied by the collective exhibitionism of social media and meme culture.

READERS TODAY [ I guess they're not so much readers but '' consumers of content. '' ] frequently lack the intellectual programming to tell the difference between a carefully crafted and rigorously edited personal essay and a TikTok video of someone crying in her car.

That's why I write, '' First, the personal became political. Then it became porn. Now it has become dust.''

Not that people shouldn't read this book of personal essays.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.