Book Weekend

I had a nice weekend in Rochester celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday with a large raucous group of her friends. Though I had met many of them before, I discovered several avid readers in the group. See below for the book recommendations I picked up. I think I may have picked up some new blog readers too!!

At dinner on Saturday, I was seated next to the lovely Amy, author of a soon-to-be-published book that I can't wait to read! At one point in the conversation she asked me what books I would most recommend. I said, "to what audience?" and she said, "just the books you'd hand down, or what you would call the most influential, or the ones you'd talk to Oprah about." I chuckled, commenting on how those are three very different questions and then stalled because I didn't have a great answer for any of them. Though I compile the booklist each year, I haven't ever kept a running favorites list which often trips me up in conversation. It's like when my boss recently asked me what U2 song I liked best, I stumbled and stuttered and came up with something off Joshua Tree. Not my finest moment, and not representative of my devotion to Bono et al.

Anyway, I should work on a more comprehensive answer to that set of questions. It would be a good project for me.

Book recommendations:

1. Amy : Random Family by Adrian LeBlanc; Courtroom 302
2. Bob and Beth: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner; China Road; Master and the Margarita; Barbara Kingsolver's new book on local eating
3. Connie: Land Without Hats by Julie Mugal
4. Mary: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Keep 'em coming.