Passing along the good stuff by Susan Swartz

One of my favorite summer reads was “Wild,” by Cheryl Strayed which I got from my neighbor, Sally, a dedicated backpacker, who got it from her cousin Caroline who lives on Orcas Island and is an avid hiker. I’m no endurance outdoors woman but I do share Sally’s, and apparently her cousin’s, tastes in books and was indeed fascinated by “Wild’s” fearless trekker.
After that I read “The Language of Flowers” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, our book group’s choice for this month. I have some questions about the story, like maybe it was a bit too structured, but I can’t wait to gather on a deck in Occidental to sip wine and talk about horticulture and homelessness.
Book club choices, the staff suggestions at independent book stores and friends’ recommendations are the main ways I build my pile of must-reads. One of my favorite things to do with friends I haven’t seen in a while is to catch up on lost time by walking through a book store and discussing our last great reads.
Newspaper book sections used to be a reliable way to read about new authors and titles. Not so much anymore. You can find best seller lists in newspapers but thoughtful reviews written in pull-out sections you keep on the kitchen table for a week are pretty rare. The only remaining metros with special review sections are the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times.
Online, you can find all kinds of people talking about their favorite books, like my friend Trish Collins’ blog, “Hey Lady! Watcha Readin’?” at heylady.net.
But now we have to worry about authors faking their own book reviews on the internet, according to a Chicago researcher who found that some even big-time authors have been writing their own glowing raves, using a pseudonym. Not only did they gush over their own books, they slammed their competitors.
I asked around to see where some heavy readers find their next books. Joan, an author who confessed her tastes usually run to the “arcane and off-puttingly lofty,” is reading “What There Is To Say We Have Said,” the letters between William Maxwell and Eudora Welty. She read about it in a literary magazine. But an equally enjoyable find was Richard Russo’s “Bridge of Sighs” which she picked up in her gym’s locker room.
I spotted a woman at a house party who was deep into Joanne Harris’ “The Girl with No Shadow.” Same characters as “Chocolat,” she said, which made me lick my lips. She gave it to me the next morning at breakfast. I gobbled it up and passed it on to a Francophile friend.
Of course recycling books doesn’t do much for an author’s royalties but it does build the fan base.
Alison, a professor and librarian, discovered “The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes when she saw it plastered across a window at the Harvard Coop. Gayanne can be seduced by what’s on a book cover which is how she discovered “Nothing Daunted, The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West” by Dorothy Wickenden, taken in by the photo of “two women on horseback in Abercrombie & Fitch tweed riding suits.”
Urban farmer Diane counts on NPR’s Fresh Air reviewer Maureen Corrigan for book suggestions. Toni, a poet and financial consultant, read the highly-touted novel “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides “just to see what the fuss was about.”
Next for me, Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” which I need to finish because my dog-walking buddy can’t wait to talk about the ending.
This stuff probably doesn’t happen on a Kindle.
Susan Swartz is an author and local journalist. You can also read her at www.juicytomatoes.com and hear her Another Voice commentary on KRCB-FM radio on Fridays. Email is su***@ju***********.com.