Oh wow! Many thanks for saying hi. I'm glad the review met with your approval.

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) January 20, 2025

The review he's talking about is here.  

(By the way, I'm glad he liked that review, because after filming it, I watched it myself and I thought, "This is horrible.  My voice is not clear, I'm wandering all over the place, and why am I smacking my lips so much?"--I certainly didn't notice that I was smacking my lips when I was filming, but it seems to have come through very noticeably on the recording. Anyway...)

Of course, when you post something publicly on the web, it makes it very easy for the author to find it.  And some people (Steve Donoghue, for example) are of the opinion that authors obsessively track down and read all their reviews, from biggest to smallest.

And yet, I tend to forget about this when I write or film a review.  I'm so used to catering to a small audience, I forget that authors can easily find my review.  And so consequently when I review something, I have no expectation that the author will actually find it.  

In this case, I had a lot of complimentary things to say about the book in my review.  (Which is no doubt why the author was pleased.)  But, you'll have to trust me on this, when I filmed the review, I was not at all thinking that the author would find it.  I was nonetheless pleased that he was happy with it.

If memory serves, there are two other times in this blog's history when an author took the trouble to thank me for a review: here and here.  Since I tend to regard author's as much superior than myself, I'm always elated when they actually reach out and make contact with me.