I am quite efficient at finding books for myself. So much so, that there is always a tower waiting to be read on the coffee table, and a long wish list. Nonetheless, I love nothing more than someone picking out a great book for me, introducing me to a new author. It’s a little like being shown the doorway to a whole new world.

It is perhaps even more miraculous when this sort of book is placed in your hand by a complete stranger. I had a lovely experience of this recently when visiting a bunch of independent bookstores in Sydney. After speaking with me for only ten minutes about the sort of fiction I enjoyed, Megan, from Potts Point Bookshop, handed me a gorgeous hardcover nonfiction book with a cabin in the woods on the cover—possibly my greatest weakness—Consolations of the Forest: alone in a cabin in the middle of Taiga, by Sylvain Tesson. I stood, holding the book, for a moment. Perfect! I could not believe how perfect. That they had the book in store, and that I hadn’t heard of it or the author.