Len Vlahos
Eyewitness to Power
I decided to recommend this title in light of the "election that wouldn't go away." With all the talk about Election 2000, Mr. Gergen's book provides a unique and timely view of life inside the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, including the all-important transitions that take place when a President assumes office. (Whoever wins the contest in Florida is already going to fight an uphill battle.) Mr. Gergen's ultimate goal is to provide insight into what makes one an effective leader, and while he succeeds in identifying some of the qualities that make these men remarkable, his conclusions often seem based on a partisan view of the world. But if you're a news/politics junkie like me, you'll want to add this book to your reading list. You may not always agree with it, but it will hold your attention.

Meg Smith
Crossing to Safety
This 1987 novel about the 34-year friendship between two couples sneaks up on you as Stegner creates layers and layers of experience for his protagonists. Just when you ask yourself, "Why is he telling me this?" Stegner answers with the insight and poetry that make him such a towering figure in American letters. Most of us are familiar with couples like these, and Stegner brings them splendidly to life, as he explores the big questions of love, marriage, and friendship.

Patti Neske
Tales From Rhapsody Home
Tales from Rhapsody Home is a winning, and often charming, account of life in a "retirement community." John Gould is a crusty curmudgeon whose warm heart can't help but shine through his grumblings as he adjusts to life in retirement. Whether it's the forlorn hope of ever getting hot soup at dinner, or the epic struggle to get the windows washed -- to say nothing of the cruel fact that they don't even open -- Gould and his wife meet the challenges and battle the bureaucracy of Rhapsody Home with humor, patience, and unbowed hope.

John Son
A Wanderer in the Perfect City
This is an astonishing and highly enjoyable collection of character profiles originally published in The New Yorker. Weschler (presumably the subject of the title) introduces you to a group of individuals caught in that perfect intersection where what they do -- often to the perplexity of others -- brings them into a kind of personal, as well as universal, realm of transcendence. A Wanderer in the Perfect City is the literary equivalent of walking into a party where everyone you meet turns out to be the most fascinating, inspiring person you've ever met -- including the remarkable journalist who brought you there in the first place.

Gavin J. Grant
The Sterkarm Handshake
This is a harsh, yet funny book that refuses easy answers. The title refers to the mostly left-handed Sterkarms, an extended family from an alternate sixteenth century north of England. When they shake hands with their right hand it leaves their dominant left hand free to use a knife. It is their easy deceptions and violent lifestyle that clash with travelers from our time. Price is a great writer: we laugh with the characters, not at them.

Jay Gesin
Booked to Die
Cliff Janeway is a tough, book-loving Denver homicide detective about to lose his career over a grudge with the local heavyweight, Jackie Newton. When a local book hunter he knows is murdered, Janeway uses his knowledge of the book world to track down the killer. The characters and bookstores are based on real people and places in Denver. Dunning uses first-hand knowledge (he and his wife own Old Algonquin Books in Denver) to fill the novel with stories about rare-book collecting. I stayed up all night with this one. It's the perfect mystery for us book lovers/addicts.

Martha Schulze
Prospero's Children
The writing is lyrical and delicious. I kept book marking pages to be shared aloud for the rich images the words painted. Fernanda (Fern) Capel is 16 going on 40. Practical and capable, she helps her widowed father manage his affairs and raise her younger brother, William. Her organized life and carefully planned future are swept away in a whirlwind of magic, mermaids and secret worlds when her father inherits a house in the country -- and Fern discovers she has inherited the family Gift.

Kristen Gilligan
The Fifth Horseman
On a blustery autumn night in Sleepy Hollow, Jon Storm decides to take a break from his studies and walk to his girlfriend's house. He never gets there. The next morning his mutilated body is found near the gates of an old cemetery. The locals wake up to face the unthinkable: has a legendary Hessian soldier, dead for 200 years, come back to haunt them, or is it simply an eccentric psychopath suiting up as the Hollow's most revered legend? This is a great suspense story -- I've never read a book with more twists and turns.