“The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.” – George Orwell, 1984 What’s a book or author that does this for you? One that gave words to something you’ve always felt but couldn’t articulate?

"The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. He had read it with a sort of faint disbelief. The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden."

For me, Steinbeck gives me this feeling the most. His prose is simple and matter-of-fact, but he can evoke more empathy and understanding in two sentences than other authors manage with chapters of flowery prose. His observations feel universally true – universally human. It was like reading things I already agreed with or sensed but had never fully expressed.

Anyway, what ya got?