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Reading in the Catskills

New year, New-ish books

Tracy Gates
Posted 1/24/23

The women in almost-matching black down coats are grazing a table full of books and both still look hungry for more. I recognize a title by Amor Towles under the arm of one of them, an author …

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Reading in the Catskills

New year, New-ish books

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The women in almost-matching black down coats are grazing a table full of books and both still look hungry for more. I recognize a title by Amor Towles under the arm of one of them, an author I’ve developed a taste for.

This cozy little bookstore is busy on an early January Saturday. There are people mingling in the middle of the store, and when I peek around some shelves, I recognize the sales clerk talking to a woman and some kids. So I turn around and introduce myself . . . to the down coats.

Debbie, the woman holding Towles’ The Lincoln Highway coordinates well with its cover; she has silvery white curly hair, black glasses, and a red leather purse. Her eyes light up when I ask her what she’s reading in the new year.

“We’re in a book club,” she says, including her down-coated companion, Jackie, who is also her sister-in-law. They just finished When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II by Molly Guptill Manning. “It’s not anything I ever would have read, ever,” Debbie adds. 

Having been in a few book clubs, the statement rings a familiar bell. The wonderful thing about books is as much as they offer a safe and comforting space with favorite authors and subjects, they’re also able to take you places you never thought you’d go…ever. This is largely the reason why I’m looking forward to writing this column each month, to not only share my own travels through books but to hitch a ride and share where others have gone.

From the sound of it, Debbie and Jackie go somewhere new each month. Or back in time. This month, their book club will be discussing the classic novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Coincidentally, I see a flyer for it at a nearby grocery: “Monday, January 30th @ 1:30. 1968 Old Route 17. New Members Welcome!”

Then again, sometimes the place you want to go is closer to home. “Everything I’m reading now is Christmas,” Patti tells me, her blond hair skimming the top of a denim jacket. She just finished Gabriel’s Angel by Nora Roberts about an artist recovering from heartbreak, and her favorite series are by Susan Wiggs and Sherryl Woods, both romance writers. She often finds them in used bookstores like The Read It Again Bookstore in Monticello.

Another customer, Eileen, pipes up that she prefers Janet Evanovich. She’s just finished Going Rogue, the 29th book in the Stephanie Plum series. “Her books are funny, adventurous, and keep you interested,” she says, adding somewhat sadly that “Number 30 doesn’t come out until November.”

Series are also a huge draw for kids, the branch manager of the Callicoon (Delaware Free) Library, Laura Moran, tells me during a visit a few days later. Wings of Fire, Dog Man, The Bad Guys, almost anything by Rick Riordan. When I ask her what she’s started the new year with she sighs like a lover besotted. The Ones that Got Away, short stories by self-described “Blackfeet dude” Stephen Graham Jones. “It’s a reframing of traditional European horror with indigenous issues,” Laura explains. “It’s just soooo good!”

While she’s showing me a tantalizing sampling of new books near the library entrance, a man in a baseball cap breezes by greeting everyone effusively, including me: “Hello, patron!” I soon learn that this gregarious presence is the library’s “tech wizard”, Dale.  He brings two other genres into the new year’s mix. He’s reading Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen for the library’s Rainbow Reader Book Club, and two self-improvement books, The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman by Carmine Gallo and Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins, an ultra-endurance athlete and retired Navy SEAL. 

I feel somewhat self-improved just hearing about the wide variety of books this small sampling of our area is reading . . . and there’s so much more to explore. I’m looking forward to it. 

Feel free to share the books you’ve begun your new year with at tracy@readinginthecatskills.com.

Tracy gates is a children’s book editor and journalist and is often found running or biking the back roads of Sullivan County. Feel free to share the books you’ve begun your new year with at tracy@readinginthecatskills.com

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