I have to thank Jimmy V. for helping me think about what I expect in a book…

We watch A LOT of sports at my house. ESPN is just typical background noise around here…

Once when I was thinking about if/what I was going to post about a certain book, I happened to hear ESPN’s often-played commercial with a snippet of Jimmy V’s famous speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage award.

I hope everyone, sports fan or not, has seen this speech:

Facing the end of his life, due to cancer, he says:

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives… Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” – Jim Valvano

I’ve always loved those words and am thankful for the inspiration whenever I hear them.

I realized I expect the same from good literature; a good book should move us to laugh, cry, and think.

It also must make me want to pick it up and finish it.

If a book does these four things for me, or a strong three out of four, I will likely be blogging about the book!