Now, it’s Friday and one of my favorites times. The weekend is beginning and I can sit back and hopefully get some time to relax and read something really good.

While covering the Cold Spring election I ran into candidate Karen Dunn’s husband, John Dunn. He is a longtime bookstore fan and someone who is very well read. We shared stories of many former lower Hudson Valley bookstores — anyone remember the wonderful Books and Things in Briarcliff Manor? — and had quite a nice talk, some of it online.

When I asked him what he was reading, here’s what he said:

“I tend to switch between very focused reading, where I’m working on one, maybe two books, and more diffuse reading, where I may be working at five or six at a time. When the latter happens, it’s unlikely that I’ll finish any one of the books. More than likely it means that I’m looking for something the nature of which I’m not even sure about. The present is a bit of an in-between time, just to make it even more complicated.

I’m spending a lot of time reading about and thinking about architecture and art, two long-time favorites that I’ve neglected for some time. In the art category I would put THE WRITER’S BRUSH: PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURE BY WRITERS, edit by Donald Friedman, with essays by William Gass and John Updike. Friedman has taken the time to gather together examples from writers as diverse as Friedrich Durrenmatt, the poet Elizabeth Bishop, Edward Lear and Gunter Grass, to name just four of the almost two 200 writers selected for the book. Each gets two facing pages, one talking about the writer and one illustrating his or her art. At $40 it’s expensive, but considering the prices of the big biographies you see these days, it’s a bargain. Warning: it’s big and it’s heavy, so don’t plan on reading it in bed, unless you want to risk a concussion.

Another that I’m reading is about poetry: THE FRIENDSHIP: WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE, by Adam Sisman. It’s just out in paperback, which is how I happened to notice it. (But I got my copy through the library!) A wonderful study of the early years of these two important English poets and of their collaboration, which resulted in many of their great poems that are still read today. Well written, informative, not at all academic.

Bookstores? We all know the independents are harder and harder to find. Three that stand out in my mind are Oblong Books in Rhinebeck (their mother store is in Millerton), Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Massachusettes, next to Boston and Boulder Books in Boulder, Colorado, where my younger daughter lives. All are on the internet. I try to support indie stores by buying from them through the internet. You don’t get the deep Amazon discounts, but you’re keeping the indies alive. And speaking of bookstores, did you know that two large B&N stores in New York City are closed or closing. Astor Place is shuttered and the store at 6th and 22nd is closing at the end of March. Now that they’ve helped to drive the indies out of business, the chains are beginning to suffer the consequences of over expansion.”

Check out John Dunn’s neat new blog described as “The free voice of a small Hudson River community, focusing not only on local stories, but regional, national and even international stories of interest. ” (I admit I’m having computer issues, so in case the link doesn’t work the address to John’s blog is www.http://radio-free-cold-spring.blogspot.com/

Happy weekend and happy reading.