Readers, fellow authors, and writers often ask me the same two questions:

 “What is your favourite book?” and “Who is your favourite author?”

It is a difficult question to answer, because how does one choose only a single title from a lifetime of reading? And yet, strangely enough, there is one book that answers both questions at once.

This is the story of how that came to be. Every word of it is the absolute truth.

Some time ago, I told you about meeting Lane Flint, a quadriplegic who became a writer despite being confined to a wheelchair. In a similar way, my own passion for writing once led me to cross paths with a local author named Winnie Rust.

At the time, I was running a small home-based computer business to support myself while quietly chasing my lifelong dream of becoming a writer.

Mrs. Rust and I had an arrangement. Once a week I would visit her home and help her wrestle with the formidable challenges of Microsoft Word — and with the constant little interruptions that threatened to derail her writing process.

I would sit right beside her, close enough to see exactly what she was trying to achieve on the screen. One thing I have learned over the years is that people often struggle to explain precisely what they want a computer — or even an AI — to do. Yet they almost always know what the final result should look like.

Her husband, a retired doctor, would usually sit nearby flipping through his newspaper, occasionally chuckling at something he read. Mrs. Rust would glare at him, silently signalling that he was becoming a distraction. He never seemed to notice.

Meanwhile their three dogs lay curled contentedly at his feet.

I have noticed something over the years: dogs seem naturally drawn to writers.

My role was simple enough. I would run spell checks, tidy up grammar, and break her long drafts into proper paragraphs. From there I would organise the manuscript into chapters, sections, scenes, and parts. Once everything was neat and orderly, I would preview the layout, make sure the margins were aligned, and save each chapter into its own folder.

Then I would compress everything into a ZIP file and attach it to an email.

Mrs. Rust would take over from there, typing the message herself and sending it to her editor at the publishing house.

When the email was finally sent, she would clap her hands with delight, let out a long sigh of relief, and immediately call for tea and cookies.

We would then move to the sunroom.

There we would sit for a while, drinking tea and talking about writers, poets, and the literary world as it existed back then. Our conversations flowed easily between our two languages — English, my language, and Afrikaans.

Those were good days. Wonderful days.

I was sitting in the company of a published writer who, rather surprisingly, sometimes asked me questions about being an indie author and an indie publisher.

The truth is, at that stage I had very little experience.

Sometimes I simply made things up.

Looking back now, I realise I wasn’t very far off after all.

Before I left each week, Mrs. Rust would pull a small wad of crisp notes from her purse and press them into my hand. I would drive home feeling like a wealthy man. With that money I could buy meat, a beer, and occasionally treat my wife to a rare barbecue on our modest terrace.

Those small moments felt like great victories.

One particular day — almost identical to all the others, except for the rain — we once again found ourselves in the sunroom after a long writing session.

That was when I noticed something on the coffee table.

Its dark cover stood out starkly against the white tablecloth.

Throughout our conversation my eyes kept drifting back toward it, making it almost impossible to focus on Mrs. Rust’s questions. She noticed, of course. A quiet, knowing smile appeared on her face.

Eventually I realised what I was looking at.

It was a hardcover book.

Not just any book — an original 1961 edition of The Reader’s Digest Anthology of Mystery and Suspense.

The thing was thick as a brick.

I was completely captivated. Drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Mrs. Rust slipped a few bills into my hand, then calmly opened the book and signed two pages inside. When she finished, she closed it gently and slid it across the table toward me.

“One day,” she said, smiling, “you’ll do the same with one of your books.”

My heart began pounding so loudly in my chest I was certain she could hear it.

I hugged her so tightly I am fairly sure I rearranged a few of her vertebrae. Then I hurried back to my car.

I placed the book carefully against the passenger seat’s headrest, buckled it in with the seatbelt, and drove home as if I were a mother racing to get her children to school.

When I arrived home, I found the perfect place for it.

Beside my computer.

That is where it sits even today.

A week after that life-changing afternoon, Mrs. Rust was tragically murdered in her home.

The attack happened in the kitchen, just beside the sunroom where we had spent so many quiet hours talking about books and writing.

What shook me most was that I had been there earlier that same morning — before the crime — and I had actually seen the man who would later become the murderer arrive at the house.

Fortunately, I understood Mrs. Rust’s methods better than most people did. Because of that, I was able to help the detectives with their investigation.

I also made certain that her unfinished manuscript found its way to the right hands. In the days that followed I received many phone calls from people urgently trying to obtain it. Her husband, understandably overwhelmed and unable to understand the sudden frenzy, simply redirected those calls to me.

And so, when people ask me about my favourite book, this is the one.

And when they ask about my favourite author, the answer will always be the same.

Winnie Rust.

The value of this book is not merely sentimental — though that alone would be enough.

What makes it truly priceless is knowing that no one else in the world possesses something quite like it.

I may not be wealthy, but I can honestly say I own something that even the richest person on earth could never buy.

Mrs. Rust, you remain in my thoughts every day.

When I am writing.

And when I am not.