Besides asking for book selections, I also like to give a few myself. So this week, it’s my turn to offer a recommendation.

It has been a busy time with two holidays squashed in during week days.. The time actually gave me a chance to finish “The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?” I have been slogging through this 350-page hardcover for many weeks and will pay for it when I return this library book slightly late. I guess it will be a contribution to the Kent Public Library so I won’t quibble and late is late. But I will kick myself for not renewing it online since Kent and all libraries in our region make it so easy to renew without leaving your house.

Anyway, I picked up this book because the author’s name was familiar. Leslie Bennetts is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and former New York Times reporter, and a friend of the sister of one of my husband’s closest friends. Never mind the connection. I had met Bennetts many years ago and was really impressed with her ambition as a journalist, so I wanted to take a look at this discussion about women, family and society. As a working mother myself I have been debating this topic with myself for years.

Bennetts says she wrote the book to provide women with information about working, maintaining their careers and the reality of life as a stay-at-home mom. You can read her own discussion online here at Huffingtonpost.com and her reaction to reviewers’ comments.

The Westchester Genealogical Society celebrates its silver anniversary by hosting a presentation on a book about the lives of four “astonishing” women of the Philipse family. Author Jean Zimmerman, who wrote “Made from Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth”, “Raising Our Athletic Daughters” and “Tailspin: Women at War”, is the featured speaker at a Jan. 12 morning meeting of the Westchester Genealogical Society to note its 25th year.

Zimmerman’s most recent book is “The Women of the House”, which chronicles the lives of women in the Philipse family, merchants who built a lower Hudson Valley merchant empire, and is expected to have a lot to tell. You can read an excerpt and find out more by clicking on Harcourt., her publisher’s site.

The program is open to the public and is at 10 a.m., Sat. , Jan. 12 at Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site, 29 Warburton Ave., Yonkers. It is co-sponsored by the Friends of Philipse Manor Hall. A $3 donation is requested and refreshments will be served at 9:30 a.m.

Westchester County Genealogical Society (WCGS) began in 1982 to bring together people interested in tracing their ancestry and study genealogical research. Its members can study genealogical research and exchange information in their search for family roots.

Author Eric Lax, who has written extensively about moviemaker Woody Allen, was in Pleasantville this Thursday at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He was talking about his latest book published by Random House in October, “Conversations with Woody Allen,” and watching a popular 1989 Allen flick, “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The Village Bookstore was on hand at the movie theater with copies for sale and Lax signed them. Movie, book and author — a perfect evening.

During a post screening Q&A with NY Times critic and Burns board member Janet Maslin, Lax talked about why his perspective of Allen is so unqiue.

The author has had a special relationship with Allen. He has interviewed him many times over more than three decades beginning in 1971, which has allowed him to put “real time” perspectives to his discussions. Most biographies, he said, offer reflections of an older person looking back on his or her younger years. Because he could retrieve earlier interviews, Lax explained he was able to show what Allen was really saying and possibly thinking at the time.

Maslin described it as a biography showing the diverse career of Allen.

And the book begins with some local color. Lax recalls driving through Tarrytown with Allen, presumably when he was shooting “Purple Rose of Cairo,” which had many scenes shot on Main Street and at the beloved Music Hall theater.

Travel often inspires people to search for specific information and reach for a good book. That was exactly the case for Meg Z. Smith, chief marketing director for the American Booksellers Association, a national trade association for independently owned bookstores based in Tarrytown, when a business conference brought her to Scottsdale, Ariz.

She said she wanted to know more about famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright after visiting the sunny Southwest spot. She heartily recommends “Loving Frank: A Novel,” a fictional account of a love story between Wright and Mamah Cheney. In real life the two were said to have meet in the 1907 when he was building a home for Cheney and her husband in a Chicago suburb. The two created quite a scandal when they ran away together to Europe leaving spouses and children behind.

“I picked it up because I went to Scottsdale and visited Taliesan West. You feel the sensation of him there and I wanted to find out more about him. Anytime I experience something in life I need to read about in a book,” said Smith, who has worked for the association since 1999 and lives in Irvington. We originally were talking about impending sales of two local bookstores, but afterwards she agreed to share her book choice.

Loving Frank is “quite a dramatic story that when you asked for a recommendation it just came to mind. It is a fictional account of real relationship that makes Wright come to life.”

Spots closer to home could have also inspired Smith’s reading interest, too.

Wright designed a cluster of houses in Pleasantville in a neighborhood called Usonia. And there’s more. Earlier this year a Mahopac man completed construction on a house on an 11-acre island in Lake Mahopac that is based on original designs that Wright drew for the lake site while spending time at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. It took nearly 5 years and he said the breathtaking house was a dream project. Read one my stories about the project here.

For those who are a bit Harry Potter starved these days here’s something new, different and audio.

Listen to what author J.K. Rowling has to say in a podcast interview, PotterCast at the popular
PotterCast provides news, discussion and interactive book talk for Harry Potter from Potter editors, film staffers and others in the know. It often has stuff that isn’t found elsewhere, according to the description.

It is fun even for someone like me who is new to the Potter world and the wizard’s adventures.

The Westchester Library System will host its 10th annual African American Writers & Readers Literary Tea on Monday, Jan. 21, 2008, the official celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The tea is from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. at Abigail Kirsch’s Tappan Hill in Tarrytown and if past experience is any indication there will be small sandwiches, many tea selections and divine sweets. A very civilized way to note the day and hear authors talk about their books.

The Literary Tea kicks off a month-long celebration of African American history, literature, and culture throughout Westchester’s 38 public libraries and is co-sponsored by the Westchester County Chapter of The Links, Inc.

“We feel that it’s important to recognize the significant literary contributions made in the African American community. The enthusiasm of the authors, sponsors, and committee members, coupled with the importance of the topic, makes this a truly special event in Westchester,� WLS Director Siobhan A. Reardon said in a prepared statement.

This year’s event will be hosted by Elise Finch, meteorologist for WCBS-TV and chaired by Barbara Edwards, Chair of the Westchester County African American Advisory Board.

Authors to be honored:

My neighbor and fellow writer Carin Rubenstein, who writes about social trends, says in her free time she loves to read fiction. She is chairwoman of the Warner Library’s Board of Trustees and author of a few books, including “Beyond the Mommy Years: How to Live Happily Ever After.”

Earlier this month she finished reading “Then We Came to the End,” Joshua Ferris, which was just listed on the New York Times List of ten best books of 2007 and which won the National Book Award.

“The daring thing this book does,” says Rubenstein, “is that it is all in the first person plural – we. You really have to get used to it. It is odd and it sucks you into the story and makes you feel it is happening to you, too.”

The story is about a group of people who work together in an office and about the world they create in their advertising agency, she explained when I called her this morning to prompt her for a recommendation.

“It is enjoyable and not what you expect,” she said. “It is a good read, not sure it is one of the ten best, or five best fiction books, but it is daring.”

You can read her full comments on her own blog at www.tivolady.com

For everyone on your holiday shopping list books are THE answer. I can’t say that any clearer. You don’t need to know what size, they wrap easily and there is something for everyone and at a variety of price points. Now, can you say that about a sweater or a pair of slippers?

While at the bookstore you can also pick up some really neat bookmarks, bookends, pens, writing papers and even some seemingly unrelated book gift items like scented soaps or candles to add personalize your gift even more. I also like the idea of nice tea or flavored coffee.

LoHud booksellers are eager to help direct shoppers to some personal favorites and good sellers. Hot sellers everywhere are David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter� for history lovers and those who want to understand the Korean Conflict and for Anna Quindlen fans, her newest book “Good Dog, Stay� about life lessons the writer learned from her beloved pooch. For children, I am hearing “The Dangerous Book for Boys� and “The Daring Book for Girls� are clear favorites.

“The year there is no mega book that is driving people in,� said Gene Sgarlata, who has owned the 70-year-old Womrath Bookstore in Bronxville for 23 years.

He said this is a good thing. “People are buying stuff across the board and taking time to look around.�

Here is a compilation of some suggestions from Sgarlata and other professional, local bookophiles.

Would you want to read a book in e-mail? A new Web service called
DailyLit allows its members to read entire books in individual
installments via e-mail or an RSS feed. The books are sent in
installments at a day and time selected by an individual reader, for
example, every weekday at 7 a.m. The site has more than 500 classic
and contemporary works, some free and others on a pay-per-read basis.
Staff writer Julie Moran Alterio is writing about the service and
would like to talk to local readers about their perspective on
electronic book-reading.

Do you like the idea of a daily installment of a book in your in-box? Are you thrilled by the new Kindle reader  from Amazon? Or all you more likely to stick with paper and ink? E- mail Julie at jalterio@lohud.com or call 914-666-6189.

Two poets are featured at Writers at Masters: Billy Collins and Eamon Grennan — and both are definitely worth devoting an evening to. The program is presented by the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center with support from The Masters School and Rivertowns Arts Council. It is held at Masters (Claudia Boettcher Theatre) at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 11th .

The HVWC describes the event as a ” special reading and Q & A with two remarkable and charismatic poets.”

Billy Collins is the author of six books of poetry including The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Picnic, Lightning, Sailing Alone Around the Room and Questions About Angels, which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series. Collins’ poetry has appeared in a variety of periodicals and in several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the editor of Poetry 180 and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.� He is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College. Billy Collins served as the United States Poet Laureate for 2001-2003 and in January 2004, he was named New York State Poet Laureate 2004-06.

Eamon Grennan is from Dublin, Ireland, and has lived in the United States for many years. He is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including The Quick of It, Relations: New & Selected Poems and Still Life with Waterfall, which was awarded the 2003 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. His collection of translations, Leopardi: Selected Poems, won the 1997 PEN Translation Award for Poetry. A collection of his critical essays, Facing the Music: Irish Poetry in the Twentieth Century, was published in 1999. Grennan has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and he has taught at numerous universities, including New York University, Columbia University, and Villanova University. He is the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, and divides his time between the U.S. and the west of Ireland.

Admission is $15, payable at the door ($10 for members of HVWC and Rivertowns Arts Council). Books will be available for purchase and autographing at a reception afterwards.

Billy Collins photo by Jersey Walz
Eamon Grennan photo by Neal Greig