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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, on-sale 12/30/08

As an editor, I live with written material a loooong time before it finds its way to other readers as a book. And it has become routine for me to feel a tinge of something I’ve recently identified as envy when I know publication is imminent and someone (hopefully lots of someones) is about to crack one of these fantastic suckers open. To sit down with a book whose voice and story you will take in as a finished work for the first time is a hugely appealing position to be in. Most readers are none the wiser about first drafts and the ideas that went nowhere, the battles I lost, the problems I missed the first time, and so had to creep back, hat in hand, begging for just one last spin around the revision block. The first-timer’s reading experience is pure and I envy that. I really do. But who am I kidding. I prize my front row seat more than anything. Whatever redundancies I endure and failings I’m responsible for, likewise I have the ridiculous privilege of witnessing the ideas that blossomed into something more captivating and original than I could have imagined, the story threads that become deeply embedded and essential, rather than exposed seams, the basting stitches easily pulled out, the plot twists that pay off, the characters who become more fully alive from one draft to the next. These satisfactions are real and lasting.