Greetings from Greater Boston! After Dropping Off the Gift of Large Print to Mom, I Go Book Browsing with a Friend.

It's time for my season trip to see my mom in Brookline.  It's always a good idea to bring a book.  Though I've complained in the past that Gale's large print are tough to stock in a bookstore, due to their high list price and textbook-style discount, they've been experimenting with a paperback reprint program that matches the trade list price. I was very excited that the large print edition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was included in this program--the perfect gift for Mom.

Right now Mom is in the middle of Savor the Moment, the third novel in Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet series.  Vows, the wedding business featured in the series, is composed of four single women.  I'm just guessing that by the end of the series, sparks are going to fly quadruply.  Book three focuses on the pastry chef.  Her wedding cakes are to die for, and apparently, so is the hunky lawyer she's eyeing.

In between emails and event calendars, and a little reading of The Borrower, Rebecca Makkai's novel of a children's librarian who sort of kidnaps one of her patrons (her first event is tonight, 6/30, at Next Chapter, while we're hosting Makkai on Wednesday, July 20, 7 pm), I headed over to Porter Square Books to meet my friend Mameve for coffee.

I said, Mameve, you have to recommend some books to me.  What do you like? 

We first talked a bit about Ann Patchett's State of Wonder.  I told her what a wonderful event we had, and then Ellen, who does the events at Porter Square, chimed in that their event was also wonderful.  Mameve was sad that she wasn't able to attend the Cambridge event.  I told her that I've had folks all week telling me how sad they were that they couldn't come to our Patchett event in Milwaukee.

If everyone who had wanted to come had come, I don't know where we would have put them.  Good thing for previous engagements. Did I mention signed copies are still available?

By far the book Mameve was most excited about was Stewart O'Nan's Emily Alone, his second story about the Maxwell family who first showed up in Wish You Were Here.  "To write about an 80-year-old woman, totally from her viewpoint...he made her life significant.  What a wonderful writer!" All quote guarranteed paraphrased.

Mameve also talked about her love for Kate Atkinson, having recently finished Started Early, Took my Dog, the fourth Jackson Brodie novel.  My sister Merrill is equally enthusiastic over this series.  "I love how the pieces all come together.  You never think she's going to be able to connect the dots, but she does it, often in unexpected ways."

I stopped reading the series after book two.  That I read two books in a mystery series is high praise indeed.  I dream of keeping up with several series, the way I did when I was younger, but I can't seem to do it.

In the end, I decided that I had too many books piled up to buy either at Porter Square, though I did pick up a half dozen postcards. A big compliment to them--I thought there displays looked terrific! In the end, I am responsible for a book purchase at Porter Square--I convinced Mameve to buy a copy of How Rocket Loved to Read, after hearing how much she liked It's a Book.

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Mameve Medwed is the author of several novels, most recently Of Men and Their Mothers.  Her appearance was one of our first events at Boswell.  Good times!