Acknowledgements......I would like to thank The Academy

I have this serious serious obsession with book acknowledgments.  Like, if i'm in a bookshop and a book captures my attention, I won't read the first few pages, I like to save that until later.  No, the first thing that I want to read are the acknowledgements.  There is something so simply beautiful about reading what inspired people to write their story, or the numerous people who helped them along the way.  Bad acknowledgements make me feel kind of icky.  They make me wonder that if this person has not even made me feel something, anything, by their acknowledgements, then it's highly doubtful i'm going to connect to their story.

I think that when your writing a book you enter this relationship with it.  An obsessive relationship.  One that takes up a lot of your thinking, a lot of your heart and heaps and heaps of time.  Life carries on though,  even when your story is probably whirling through your mind demanding your attention.  I want to know what it was like, the things you overcome when writing, the people who did little things to make the path to publication all that easier.  I eat this stuff UP.  Even the thanks to your partner for washing all those dishes. To your sister for minding your kids so you could write.  There is something so unassuming about a writer that appreciates the little things, because it makes me think that maybe their characters appreciate the little things.  It gives me a little insight.  Seriously.  I've read acknowledgements for books that i've not even read.

I love personal acknowledgements, ones that use simple meaningful words to express how they feel about the people who was there for them when they started their book.  I guess some people like funny acknowedgements.  I will admit the Will Grayson, Will Grayson ones made me laugh out loud.  If you can laugh a lot just reading one pages of peoples thanks to other people, then I'm guessing i'm going to laugh my ass off when I read that book.  I like the soppy ones.  Heck, some have even made me cry, but that is GOOD, because if they can invoke that reaction from me, then I am sure going to read that book.  Even if it's about mutant ninja bunnies plotting to take over the world oil supply.  I WILL READ IT.  (also, can someone please write that book, kthnx).  I love this stuff.

But what about you? Are you as obsessed with acknowledgements like I am? What do you think makes them stand out? And most importantly, do you think there as important as i like to think they are?