There are three kinds of professional jealousy that I deal with on a regular basis.

#1 They don't deserve that!
This is what I feel when someone writes a book I think isn't that great, and it wins awards, or sells a million copies. I usually alleviate the pain by reminding myself that the author must have done something right, and if I can figure out what it is, I can use it in my books and get all those readers to make me rich. Or sometimes there are just flukes and that writer was the lottery winner. Shrug. I can live with that.

#2 I can't believe how incredible this book is!
This is when I read a book I think is great, completely different from anything I would ever write, and wins awards and sells a million copies. There's a little jealousy because I wish it would happen to me, but it's not as intense because it's not my field, not my shtick. To make myself feel better, I tell myself that it will happen to me someday and I'm all right with that.

#3 That was my book!
This is what happens when you read that book you might have written and everyone else is reading it, too. It is the perfect book, with deep themes, characters with flaws and great hearts, a twisty plot, and rules of magic that are ingeniously true to life. A book that takes its time, but not too long, and that leaves me wanting more at the end. But also wondering if there's hope for my writing, because I can't do this. I may never be able to do this.

Is it enough for me to do what I can do, even if it's never as good as that? That's the question that haunts me on rare occasions. Rare because I don't come across a book like that except maybe once in ten years.

Maybe the best to hope for is that the writer is actually a very nasty person in real life.