Around Mother’s Day I’m always thinking about the time period before my mother died in 2020. At 92, she had already given up driving, but was still visiting the amazing @fayettevillepubliclibrary to keep her stack of books fresh and ready.

An avid reader, she could move through a book faster than anyone I knew! But when Covid hit and she needed to stay home, we started this system where I would buy books 3 or 4 at a time from Amazon. When she finished them, she gave them back to me to keep and read. Then I ordered a new batch.

We went on this way for many months and I ended up with a bunch of books at my house. A bunch. But I took way more than that from this experience. She and I had always loved murder mysteries – but during this time we discovered new authors and genres and branched out a bit in our preferences. And remembering our talks after both reading a book is a treasured memory now.

Lord, how I miss her. 💔 But our mutual love of books and our 2020 book-buying adventures inspired me.

Assembled Story: “Things Moms Love – Books”

The players:

Books by this amazing authors – Ann Patchett, Jodi Picoult, Leif Enger, Anthony Doerr, Mary Higgins Clark, Liane Moriarty, Beth Moore, Delia Owens, Tsh Oxenreider, Tracy Buchanan, Jasmine Guillory, Louise Penny, Annie F. Downs, Harlan Coben, BIll Bryson, Ruth Ware, John Grisham, Jean Stoffer, Sue Grafton, Barack Obama, V.E. Schwab, Luanne Rice, Jan Karon, A.J. Finn, James Patterson, Wendell Berry, Celeste Ng, Gabrielle Hamilton, Davis Bunn, Ashley Audrain, Rick Steves, Ina Garten, Jennifer Ryan, Dolly Parton, Mary Stone, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Paul Tremblay, Karen Cleveland, Patrick DeWitt, Ruth Hogan, Beverly Lewis, Emily Griffin, and Fiona Barton.