Rain and books

For six days, we've been holed up in a mountain cabin with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, wishing the rain would stop. For the most part, it hasn't, so the bikes sit forlornly in a puddle while we go jaunting about in a Jeep instead. Or we stay indoors, playing card games and Scrabble. Or reading. I've been reading mostly non-fiction. Work-related books, necessary but boring.

My sister-in-law, the lucky duck, has been reading Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky who began the novel in France during World War II. Nemirovsky wrote about the war as it was happening, not knowing whether or not she would survive it. She didn't. She died in Auschwitz in 1942 before completing the book. The few pages that I browsed were wonderfully written. Here's a review from the New York Times.

I'm going home with more books than I started with. My sister-in-law returned a couple of books that she'd borrowed from me, one by Charles Martin and one by Dean Koontz. Then we stopped at a used-books store on one of those rainy days and picked up some kids' books for our first grandbaby. So it's an eclectic jumble of books in my backpack.

This morning I found a delightful post written by my daughter's friend Beth. She has listed some of her favorite books, many of which are my favorites, too. I immediately started thinking of books I would have to add to her list. That must mean I should post my own. Soon.