Flat St. Paul hanging on one of the bookcases in my study at St. Paul’s United.

It’s Friday Five time over at Revgals and today it’s all about books. I love reading, I can hardly remember a time when books didn’t excite and comfort me. I will always be grateful to my parents, and particularly my mother, for fostering my love of reading. I don’t remember being read to as a child, but I must have been, because I do remember waiting anxiously for the mailman to come because it might mean another Dr. Suess book. I can still recite parts of Green Eggs and Ham. I remember the thrill of being allowed to check out up to SIX books at a time at the library in the small northern town we lived when I was six years old. And going back as many times as I wanted; those were the days of ‘free-range parenting.’

I still get excited when I know a book is waiting for me at the post office!

Share with us some of your favorites:

A cookbook – The Canadian Mennonite Cookbook; this is the cookbook I grew up baking with and while I love searching the web and trying new recipes, it is still the one I turn to for tried and true favourites. It’s the cookbook that I used I was first trusted with dessert making at home. My copy bears the spatters of more than four decades of using it.

A novel – That’s really challenging, over the years, there have been so many. I am indiscriminate in my reading material. I love romance, crime thrillers, suspense, historical fiction, about the only genre I don’t like is horror. I love delving deeply into thick meaty books like the early Diana Galbadon books; those are the books that keep me reading long after my eyes should be closed for the night. I love the light, frothy works of Susan Wiggs for escapism and the darkness of human nature of Jeffrey Deaver.

A nonfiction book – I just finished reading Through the Glass by Shannon Moroney; a compelling story of betrayal, forgiveness and resilience after finding out that her new husband has sexually assaulted two women a month after they were married.

A well-thumbed book to which you turn often, or with affection, used in our profession – Hmm, may be a Bible? Despite my love for all things electronic, I still use my LARGE print Bible the most.

An author you recommend frequently to others – Louise Penny; her stories set in Three Pines, a village in Quebec, featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache are intriguing, well written and demonstrate the breadth of human nature.

Bonus: what are you reading now? – I have a few things on the go: Gil Rendle’s Leading Change in the Congregation, I just cracked Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints and for bedtime reading, I just finished one of Marian Keyes’ Anybody Out There.

Now… back to pickling 36 pounds of beets!