Last week, in the span of a few days, my daughter and two friends reached out, asking, “What should I read next?” This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked for a book recommendation. I do work in a bookstore, after all, and yet, each time, I get a little thrill.
Books are a matter of taste and what one friend might like, another might hate with a passion. Being asked to recommend a book is a sign that my friends, my daughter, and even customers in the store know that I see them, I understand not only what they like to read, but who they are in some small measure.
By asking “What should I read next?” they are implicitly saying, “I trust you to know what I need right now.” They are confident that I will know they need a funny and hopeful read, or they want a page-turner that will keep them hooked until the last page to distract them from their real-world troubles. Perhaps it’s my stepfather, whose mind is a complex and curious maze and loves nothing more than a heavy tome filled with facts of history that most of my friends and family would scrunch their noses at in distaste. He is equally captivated by “The Wide Wide Sea” by Hampton Sides, documenting the last journey of Captain Cook, as he is by a thick medical textbook. And because I also have a penchant for history, “The Wide Wide Sea” drew us closer across a geographic distance.
I am honored by every book recommendation request I receive, to have won the trust, to have a small window into someone’s mind; even if I may disagree with that individual on some of the meaty questions swirling in today’s world–politics or religion, most frequently. With the shared experience of a book read and enjoyed, those dividing lines melt away.
My mother-in-law and I don’t see eye-to-eye on most of these touchy topics, and we respectfully keep our conversations far from any fraught subjects. Yet, I knew she would love “Heart of Winter” by Jonathan Evison, the story of a long marriage with the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies that necessarily transpire over 40 years of being together with another human being. The book spoke to her own experiences. We both recognized ourselves in the wife, who struggled with the way her husband dealt with their difficult child, and her boredom and stagnation in her middle years. There is so much more to my mother-in-law than her point of view about immigration or U.S. relations with Iran. She is a kind, warm, funny human being who has been married for 60 years, raised four children to be good people, all while juggling laundry, cooking and a full-time job. Recommending this book was a way to tell her that I saw and understood her and that we had commonalities in our life experiences.
Books offer us a thread to connect with another human being, no matter whether you are best friends or strangers. A few months ago, I was sitting at the bar in 900 Wall next to a woman who was reading a book. I couldn’t NOT ask her what she was reading. It’s a compulsion I have, and when she told me she was reading Richard Powers’ “The Overstory,” a book I’ve heard much about but haven’t read, there was a spark of connection. I knew a little bit about her just by what she had chosen to read and this enabled us to strike up a conversation about what other books we’d loved, as we sipped our drinks. When she left a few minutes later, I had made a small connection to another person, and it felt good.
When customers purchase their books at the cash register, the choices they’ve made give me nuggets of insight into their interests and their worldview. Most importantly, their reading choices give me an opportunity to connect with them about shared interests and passions.
These conversations are my greatest joy as a bookseller and what makes bookstores unique in the retail world. I won’t go so far as to say what you read is who you are, or that books are windows into our souls. But if a book gives us the opportunity to spark a connection with a neighbor, another community member, to build a bridge to another human being, then no matter the book, it has done more than its job of entertaining and educating. It has made our fraught world more hopeful. That book has let us be seen by another person in the world. And what’s more important than that?
Check out our bookseller’s favorites. Which recommendations connect best with you?
Below is just a sampling. For the full list of our Staff Picks visit: https://roundaboutbookshop.com/catalog/roundabout-books-staff-picks
This article appears in Source Weekly July 3, 2025.
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