Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

A Thank You Note from An Goris

Back in 2008, An Goris wrote to ask for our help in finding copies of Nora Roberts' older novels for her PhD dissertation, which was an author study of Roberts' career and backlist. 

As of last month, Goris is now Dr. An Goris, having successfully defended her dissertation. Mazel tov! 

She sent me the following note and asked that I share with you, the most awesome romance readers on the planet: 

I am emailing to ask you if there is a way in which you could convey my most sincere and heartfelt thanks to the readers of your blog. As you know I have recently completed my dissertation on Nora Roberts. I could not have written this work without the incredibly generous support from various readers of your blog, very many of whom send me original editions of Nora's older books that I would otherwise have had much trouble getting my hands on. These books became a core part of the corpus on which my dissertation is based and have been absolutely crucial in my being able to carry out the work that I did. Many of these books were given to my in response to my Nov 2008 HaBo request, the reaction to which was staggering - readers not only freely gifted me their books, but each and every one of them insisted on paying postage themselves (which, as a poor grad student, was a godsend to me, to be honest).

Within a few weeks I was flooded by both supportive emails and dozens of postal packages containing free and to me very valuable books - one reader even went as far as to send me a book from Australia. I tried to respond to all emails and packages I received, but sometimes I could not determine who had sent me stuff.

So, now that the dissertation is officially completed and defended, I was wondering if you could convey my thanks to your readers - as a group and community you are mentioned in the acknowledgements section of the dissertation itself, but I'd like to make sure my gratitude reaches even those generous souls whom I have lost track of in the course of events and that your readers realize they in a very real and direct way contributed to making possible the first ever book-length study of Nora Roberts' oeuvre.

You are all so very awesome. High fives to you, and to Dr. Goris!