Tag Archives: books

My Top Books of 2022

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‘Tis the season for book lists. I’ll join the party.

To be honest, 2022 wasn’t a great reading year for me. Maybe it had something to do with a major life change (retirement), but I had a hard time focusing and concentrating. Maybe it was because I kept picking bad books. All I know is, I gave up on more books than ever before. I managed to plow through 28 books this year, which is about half of my usual. Here are my top five.

5. Surrender to Love, by David Benner
My word for 2022 was “hesed”, the Hebrew word for love. I thought to myself, “I’m going to learn how to love. I’m going to become a more loving person. I’m going to get this love thing down.” Then I read Surrender to Love and everything shifted. My quest to become a better lover had to start with learning how to be a better receiver of the Father’s love. When I tried to imagine God thinking about me, I usually assumed He was somewhat frustrated and disappointed. I began contemplating the fact that God bursts with love for me, and that love swells in His heart when He thinks of me. I don’t know if I got any better at loving other people this year, but I did find a deeper appreciation for the length, width, depth and height of His love for humans, including me.

4. Reforesting Faith, by Matthew Sleeth
Trees were a major theme for me this year. I read books about trees, I listened to podcasts about trees, I listened to sermons on trees. And I spent a lot of time walking in the woods. I read Matthew Sleeth’s book in January and thought about it all year. He points out, “Other than God and people, the Bible mentions trees more than any other living thing. There is a tree on the first page of Genesis, in the first psalm, on the first page of the New Testament, and on the last page of the Revelation. Every significant theological event in the Bible is marked by a tree.” His comparison of human lungs and tree roots still blows my mind.

3. Deeper, by Dane Ortlund
Dane Ortlund’s book, Gentle and Lowly was my 2020 book of the year, so I was eager to read his next offering. It did not disappoint. He addresses the broad idea of what it means to grow in faith and mature in Christ. Then he gives practical advice on how to do that without becoming formulaic. I turned many of his ideas into prayers: “Lord, help me to trade in my snorkel and face mask for scuba gear that takes me down into the depths I’ve never peered into before.” (I can’t find my copy. If I lent it to you, could I please have it back?!) 🙂

2. How It Went, by Wendell Berry
My absolute favorite fiction book series is Wendell Berry’s Port William novels. I read all of them in 2017 and it was pure joy. I’ve been thinking about re-reading the series, just because I miss the characters and Berry’s way of writing about them. So imagine my delight when I saw a new addition! I couldn’t push the “Buy Now” button fast enough. At 88 years old, Berry still has the ability to write words that make me ache and smile all at once.

1. The Songs of Jesus, by Tim Keller with Kathy Keller
My 2022 book of the year is The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms. This book saved my life this year. I’ve never spent an entire year in one book of the Bible, but God knew this was exactly what I would need in 2022. The Psalms became my anchor, my refuge, my strength. Along with reading the short passage, reflection and prayer each day, I made notes and highlighted key words in my Illuminated Scripture Journal book. But mostly I prayed the psalms. They gave me words I didn’t have, expressed emotions I was afraid to feel, and taught me the language of praise.

As Dane Ortlund states in Deeper, “The Psalms are the one book in the Bible addressed to God. In it God takes us by the hand and gives us words to speak back to Him.” The Psalms did indeed take me deeper into the heart of God. They will continue to be my lifelong companions.

I discovered more resources that kept pouring the richness of the Psalms into my heart and mind.

  • In The Lord I Take Refuge podcast, by Dane Ortlund
  • Hidden Streams podcast, by Chad Bird
  • Treasury of David, Charles Spurgeon’s commentary on the Psalms
  • Music by The Corner Room, The Psalms Project, Poor Bishop Hooper and many others

“We cannot bypass the Psalms. They are God’s gift to train us in prayer that is comprehensive and honest. That’s it: open your Bibles to the book of Psalms and pray them — sequentially, regularly, faithfully, across a life-time. This is how most Christians for most of the Christian centuries have matured in prayer. Nothing fancy. Just do it.” — Eugene Peterson, Answering God

Here’s to a prosperous reading year in 2023!
Sing some songs of Jesus in the year ahead!

Resources
My Word for 2022
Be Like a Tree
Tree of Life
Fruitless
10 Things I Learned in January
The Bible Project, Tree of Life series: https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/tree-of-life/
Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness, by Michael Card

My Top Books of 2021

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I like reading end-of-the-year posts that reflect back on favorite things, especially books. Sometimes I find a few titles to add to my TBR list. Sometimes I shake my head and screw up my nose at people’s taste in reading. These lists are pretty subjective and mine is no different. So take what you want and feel free to leave the rest.

I read 53 books in 2021, 12 of which were fiction, which is a new record for me. Because I focused on prayer this year, there are several titles on that topic. Here we go!

10. How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People, by Pete Greig
Pete is the head of the 24/7 Prayer Movement. Back in 1999, a simple student-led prayer vigil in England went viral and people all over the world joined in to pray. And it never stopped. Twenty-two years later, Greig has learned a thing or two about prayer. This straight-forward, approachable guide was a good reminder of basics that I needed.

9. God On Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer, by Pete Greig
What happens when the head of a global prayer movement doesn’t get an answer to his prayers? Greig’s wife suffered a series of seizures that almost took her life and she continues to live with a debilitating disease, despite prayers for healing. In this book, Greig gets personal and honest about his own struggle and helps us wrestle with the hard reality of unanswered prayer. He reads the audio version of his book — you can hear the pain and the hope in his voice.

8. Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep, by Tish Harrison Warren
Drawing on her own painful experience of loss and doubt, Warren was grounded by liturgical prayer when she had no words of her own to pray. She writes about going through hard seasons in a way that helps us see the beauty in the midst. Her book opened up to me the world of ancient prayers given to the church through the centuries — rich prayers that are deep and vibrant.

7. The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig
One of my reading goals this year was to find a novel set in Montana in the early 1900s. Why, you ask? My great-great-grandparents went to Montana in the late 1800s and homesteaded near Lewistown. I have a pile of letters written by Great-Great-Grandma Harriet to her daughter Kate (my great-grandma) in Wisconsin. I have long idealized what life was like for them out in Big Sky country. This novel helped me enter into their world. Plus, it’s a really enjoyable story.

6. Reading Ruth, by Leon Kaas and Hannah Mandelbaum
Our church did a women’s Bible study this summer on Ruth, so I downloaded this short volume to read along. It is written by a Jewish man and his granddaughter, which I thought was charming. Although Kaas is not a Jesus follower, his insights into Jewish tradition and the Hebrew meaning of words really enriched the study.

5. Night Driving: Notes From a Prodigal Soul, by Chad Bird
This is the story of an arrogant pastor and driven seminary professor who destroyed his marriage and career with affairs and addictions. With his life in a heap of ruins, he started driving a semi-truck through the Texas oil fields at night. After ten years of bitter struggle, grace and healing finally won his heart. He was a prodigal soul who found his way back to God. Chad Bird became a humble servant who now writes like no one else. Other books by this author that I read this year include: “Your God Is Too Glorious”, “The Christ Key”, and “Unveiling Mercies”. I will read everything this man puts out there.

4. Pray Big: Learn to Pray Like an Apostle, by Alistair Begg
This book caught my eye at a radio station where PB and I were doing an interview. The host told me to take it home with me and since I can’t turn down a free book, I slipped it in my purse. I was afraid this little paperback would turn out to be one of those “name-it-and-claim-it” kinds of things. I was skeptical. I was wrong. This small gem held many nuggets of truth that I’m still thinking about.

3. God of All Things: Rediscovering the Sacred in the Everyday World, by Andrew Wilson
At the time I read Wilson’s book, I thought it was okay. But then I kept taking it off the shelf and referring back to it over and over. He takes the simple, ordinary things of this earth and weaves them around scripture, tying the holy to the common. My favorite chapter was entitled “Pigs”, but each short chapter holds its own treasure.

2. A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, by Winn Collier
Collier was given the privilege of perusing all of Eugene Peterson’s personal diaries and journals, as well as compiling notes from hours of interviews with the famous pastor/writer before Peterson died in 2018. This biography doesn’t leave out the uncomfortable stuff, yet captures the remarkable life of a man of enduring faith, boundless creativity and lifelong devotion to the Word.

1. Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, by Eugene Peterson
My number one book this year combined the theme of my year (prayer) with one of my favorite authors (Peterson). This book was a turning point for me in my quest to better understand prayer and become a better pray-er. “We cannot bypass the Psalms. They are God’s gift to train us in prayer that is comprehensive and honest.” Here is his recommendation: “That’s it: open your Bibles to the book of Psalms and pray them — sequentially, regularly, faithfully, across a life-time. This is how most Christians for most of the Christian centuries have matured in prayer. Nothing fancy. Just do it.” Most of my copy of this book is underlined. If you’re at all interested in falling in love with the Psalms, or learning to pray like Jesus did, this is the book for you.

As always, I’d love a good book recommendation!
I’ll add it to the 200 titles on my TBR list.
Here’s to a happy reading year in 2022!

Favorite Books of 2020

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Most people are ready to say, “So long!” to 2020.
It did seem so long.

Still, I can’t resist a look back at one of the most unique years of my life. In the midst of uncertainty, loss and grief, there were some surprising gifts. So, during these closing days of 2020, I’ll be sharing some of those good things — starting, of course, with books. I read 50 books this year. Here are my faves:

1. The Chronicles of Narnia
I started off the year by reading through the seven volume series by C. S. Lewis. I was familiar with “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, but have never read the whole series. Fantasy isn’t my forte, but Lewis created a world that drew me in. I cried when Aslan bounded down the mountain in the final scene. The series was written for children, but it is deep and rich enough for any adult.

2. The Scent of Water
Elizabeth Goudge was a British author who wrote novels set in English towns with flowery descriptions of gardens and cottages. I found, tucked within her stories, bits of wisdom that have stuck with me. I kept stopping to jot down lines that made me sigh with satisfaction.

“Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy hands. These are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well.”

In mid-February, little did I know “times of distress” were around the corner. I was grateful for those three three-word, necessary prayers in the months to come.

3. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament
Most of us don’t know how to lament very well. There’s a right way to do it, and Mark Vroegop walks us through it in this book. After losing a child, Vroegop traveled into dark clouds and then found his way back to deep mercy. The Psalms gave words to his suffering and he encourages us to be honest about our pain on the way to healing.

4. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus and Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus
These two books by Lois Tverberg were extremely helpful in understanding Jesus’ Jewishness and middle eastern culture in general. There are some things in the Bible that seem strange to my American mindset, but make perfect sense when put in the context of New Testament Jewish understanding. Tverberg’s insights made the gospels come alive with meaning.

5. The Golden Alphabet
While preparing to write a series of blog posts on Psalm 119, I stumbled on this gem by Charles Spurgeon. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, taking about 12 minutes to read. Spurgeon’s verse by verse commentary takes 9 hours and 45 minutes to read. However did he do it with no internet?

6. All Things New: Heaven, Earth, and the Restoration of Everything You Love
John Eldredge writes in a way that makes me want to put the book down and applaud at the end of each chapter. Especially when it comes to imagining the possibilities that awaits us in eternity. If you think heaven is one long boring church service and all we do is sit around strumming harps, this book will rock your world.

7. Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad
I love Austin Kleon’s little books of pep talks. They are simple, profound and can be read in an afternoon. They contain a combination of funny drawings, poetry and good advise. Like this:

“How to Be Happy”

8. The Old Man and the Sea
I wanted to read at least one classic this year and this title by Ernest Hemingway was available at the library. It was also skinny — only 128 pages. I had another reason for reading this book. I remember my mother tucking me in at night and saying, “Bed, you are my friend,” which was supposedly a quote by Santiago, the old Cuban fisherman. She was close (“And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing”). Now it makes me wonder if sometimes at night, my mother felt exhausted, like she fought with the biggest fish in the ocean all day.

9. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Healthier, Happier and More Creative
This book wasn’t an easy read and (full disclosure) I skimmed some of it. Written by Florence Williams, a journalist from Washington D.C., it’s full of reports on studies done on the effects of spending time in natural surroundings. I figured nature was good for us, but I didn’t know HOW good. According to this book, it’s more important than we think. She included enough personal stories to keep me interested, but in the end, the scientific findings were what stuck with me. We need nature.

10. Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
Dane Ortlund’s thoughtful and meditative book was my #1 book of the year. This look at the heart of Christ made me think about things I’ve never thought about before. It showed me things about Jesus I’ve never noticed before. The chapters were short, but packed with many, many underline-able sentences. I will be carrying this one with me into the new year, reading it again so I can discover more things to think about and underline everything I didn’t the first time through.

Here’s to a good reading year in 2021!

January Lit List

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I remember my mother saying that February wasn’t good for anything except reading a book. I’ve adopted that same philosophy, but expanded it to include January and March. Gloomy winter days and cold dark nights are especially conducive to knocking titles off my To Be Read list and moving them to my Books Read notebook.

I’ve been listing books since 2004. There are enough pages in my notebook to keep recording titles until 2059. I’ll be 100 years old. I like to plan ahead.

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2017 has gotten off to a brisk start. Here’s what has been on the bookshelf in January:

  • The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gains — their love story and their rise to fame. They have somehow stayed humble and appreciative. Inspiring.
  • Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry — the first of Berry’s “Port Williams” series of stories. Wendell didn’t know it would turn into a series when he wrote this. I’m glad he kept going.
  • Watch For the Light: Readings for Advent — this compilation of readings continued into January. It was nice to extend Christmas through Epiphany.
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte — somehow I made it through sixteen years of education without reading this book. I listened to the free audio version by LibriVox, complete with Elizabeth Klett’s English accent.
  • The Art of Slow Writing by Louise De Salvo — I’m a slow writer. Now I know it’s an art.
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows — purely for fun. So delightful. I wanna go to Guernsey.
  • Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry — my heart just swelled typing this title. Oh Wendell. I wish you could come over for dinner and talk about Troy and Mattie and Burley. And, of course, Jayber.

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Happy winter reading!

10 Things I Read Last Year

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In December, I learned to be quiet. That’s all.

So instead of 10 things I learned in December, here is a list of 10 things I read in 2016. I collect quotes like some people collect antique dishes or shoes or shot glasses. Here’s a peek at some good quotes from my reading year.

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1. “Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith…I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless; prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.” Lauren Winner, Still: Notes On a Mid-Faith Crisis

2. “The library was a little old shabby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She liked the combined smell of worn leather bindings, library paste and freshly inked stamping pads better than she liked the smell of burning incense at high mass.” Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

3. “Right theology is ultimately hospitality that lives broken right open — with your time and your space and your heart. Every day you can do one thing that you wish you could do for everyone.” Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way

4. “If you want to really tick people off, just bring up the word Jesus… Say Jesus and people either get happy, or they get mad. They either smile, or a cloud comes over their faces…No other name has such potency. Not Clinton, not Gandhi, not Thatcher, not Lennon.” Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir

5. “I have spent so much of my believing life trying to chain myself to a rock in order to prove my love to Jesus that I may have missed the chance to be chained to Jesus instead… Maybe I’ve missed the point all along. Maybe being chained to Jesus doesn’t involve a chain at all.” Micha Boyett, Found: A Story of Questions, Grace and Everyday Prayer

6. “Time doesn’t stop. Your life doesn’t stop and wait until you get ready to start living it.” Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

7. “The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.” Kathleen Norris, The Quotidian Mysteries

8. “Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.” Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants

9. “Had God pulled me from Adam’s rib and placed me naked in the garden, the story would be no different. Let’s not blame Eve anymore. If she hadn’t eaten the fruit it most certainly would have been me. I would have eaten it again and again, and then I would have given you a bite.” Amber C. Hains, Wild in the Hollow: On Chasing Desire and Finding the Broken Way Home

10. “It seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism.” Philip Yancey, as quoted in Watch For the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas

What’s in store for 2017? How about a little more Wendell Berry? I must have been a very good girl this year. Tell me, what book are you reading to start 2017?

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Lover of Books

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“Rereading books,

we said with immense agreement,

was the mark of the real lover of books.”

I came across this quote while I was rereading “A Severe Mercy” (by Sheldon Vanauken), which makes me a real lover of books, evidently.

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For the past thirteen years, I have kept a list of all the books that I have read. In 2013, I read twelve books. That was the year I got my iphone. In 2015, I read 55 books. That was the year I got over my iphone.

This quote got me wondering. Of the hundreds of titles on my list, how many had been worthy of a second read? Surprisingly, there was a handful.

  1. “Gift From the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  2. “When the Soul Listens” by Jan Johnson
  3. “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan
  4. “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren
  5. “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis
  6. “A River Runs Through It” by Norman Maclean
  7. “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
  8. “Peace Like a River” by Lief Enger
  9. “Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken
  10. “The Holy Bible” by God

I really don’t like to watch movies I’ve already seen.

I don’t care to listen to the same album over and over.

But sometimes a book comes ’round again,

and I just have to open the pages.

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Two Books

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In June, I wrote about my son-in-law’s Christmas gift to me — reading four books together in 2016. The first two books were a resounding success so we each made another pick.

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My second choice was “A River Runs Through It” by Norman Maclean. It’s a story about a fly-fishing, Presbyterian minister and his two sons. If you’ve seen the movie, you will picture Brad Pitt standing in the river, casting his line, on every page. But that’s ok. Because the writing is so captivating, even Brad Pitt takes a back seat.

Maclean’s phrases are picturesque: “The storm came on a wild horse and rode over us.” “Then the air disappeared from view.” “We were so dry that we could feel in our ears that we were trying to swallow.”

Some more of my favorite excerpts:

“You can love completely without complete understanding.”

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things — trout as well as eternal salvation — come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

“As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God’s rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty.”

“It was here that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.”

My son-in-law, Dan, admitted it was tough at first to wade through all the fly-fishing lingo, but when he finished the book, he sent me this text: “Wow. That book deserves another read-through. Man, that last paragraph. The best ending words I have ever read.”

That’s saying something.

Dan’s second choice was “A Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken. I’m just a couple chapters in so the jury is still out. Dan and I will talk it over at Thanksgiving.

Wednesday Words: The Closer

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I am reading “The Closer” to PB. It is the story of Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankee pitcher who is MLB’s all time saves and ERA leader. For those not familiar with baseball lingo, that means he is the greatest relief pitcher of all time. If you’re still in the dark, Rivera was the guy who came out to the mound in the ninth inning to get the last three outs in a close game. His role was to finish off the game and keep the lead, hence the name, “The Closer”.

This book has given PB and I some things to think about:

1. Rivera was poor kid from Panama, who played baseball on the beach with a glove made out of an old milk carton. His humble start in life kept him appreciative every step of the way.

2. I don’t hate the Yankees anymore. Although the book tells about their many World Series victories, he talks as much about the many play-off games they lost. The insider look at the clubhouse and the dynamics between the players revealed that most of them were very close friends and not money-hungry narcissists. I said most.

3. When Mariano signed with the Yankees, he didn’t speak any English and didn’t realize his signature meant he would be getting on a plane and flying to America. He was terrified of flying and always held his Bible on his lap when in the air.

4. All throughout the book, he gave God the glory for everything that took place. His faith was strong, but not flashy.

5. When asked to give some advise to a young pitcher who was struggling with his mental approach to closing, he said,

“The job is hard enough without overcomplicating it. You don’t want a lot of noise playing in your head. You don’t want doubts. You just have to think about making every single pitch the best pitch it can be. Don’t worry about getting beat. It is going to happen. It happens to everybody, but the best thing you can do for yourself is have a short memory. You can’t take what happened yesterday out to the mound today.”

PB and I think that’s good advise for life.

Lord, help me not overcomplicate things. Drown out the noise that plays in this world that fills me with doubts. Help me to just do the best I possibly can with what You’ve given me. Some days I’ll feel like a loser. That happens to everybody. Give me the grace to let it go and move on so I don’t take yesterday’s failures out to the mound today. Amen.

 

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Four Books

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For Christmas last year, my son-in-law, Dan, gave me a truly creative gift. He offered to read four books with me over the course of the coming year. One of my favorite things to talk about with Dan is books. He was an English Lit. major and has an appreciation for good writing, so I corner him whenever they visit and pick his brain about all things books and reading.

I chose the first book. In January we read “Peace Like A River” by Leif Enger. It’s a great story with fascinating characters, but it was Enger’s writing style that drew me in on page one. I haven’t had the best of luck with fiction, so I felt like I hit a gold mine with this book.

If you are ever standing in the fiction section of a book store and come across “Peace Like A River”, read the second to last chapter. It will take you about eight minutes. I’ve perused Enger’s words many times and they always move me. Better yet, buy the book, take it home and read the whole thing.

Dan’s first pick was “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell, which we are reading together now. I thought it was appropriate to use my “Mark the Bookmark” bookmark in honor of Goliath.

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Gladwell’s book looks at “underdogs, misfits and the art of battling giants.” In the introduction, he points out the many ways Goliath was disadvantaged in the show-down with David. Most Sunday school versions of the Old Testament story make Goliath out to be the easy champion and David’s unlikely victory the surprise ending.

Now I’m rethinking all that.

Perhaps David had the odds on his side from the very start.

Maybe being the underdog has its advantages.

“We have a definition in our heads of what an advantage is — and the definition isn’t right. And what happens as a result? It means that we make mistakes. It means that we misread battles between underdogs and giants. It means that we underestimate how much freedom there can be in what looks like a disadvantage.” Malcolm Gladwell

Once Dan recommended a book to me and I read it, but didn’t love it — until I talked it over with him and he pointed out all kinds of things I had missed. Then I realized that I did love it. Discussing “David and Goliath” should make for some interesting conversation with my son-in-law.

I’m learning that talking over a book can be as powerful as reading it.

Wednesday Words: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

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Sometimes when I read a book, I come across words that work so well together I just have to open my college ruled spiral notebook and copy them down. Then I revisit those words from time to time and let them work on me. This collection of quotes and excerpts has grown over the years. I figure there’s no sense in letting them pile up in a stuffy closet. Hence, this series of Wednesday Words.

I have a weak spot for books about books. In “The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry” by Gabrielle Zevin, there is a quote that captures how I feel about her story:

“Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That’s basically the highest compliment I can give.”

Here are some more gems:

“I like talking about books with people who like to talk about books. I like paper. I like how it feels, and I like the feel of a book in my back pocket. I like how a new book smells, too.”

“Bookstores attract the right kind of people….. A place ain’t a place without a bookstore.”

(For a peek at our local used bookstore, that makes our town a place, click here.)

“We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.”

“We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.”

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, ‘What is your favorite book?'”

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