Get Lost in a Good Book

The other day, after heating up my lunch, I walked to the teacher break room and was surprised to find one of the teachers eating lunch all alone, one-handed, at the table.  With one hand, she balanced salad on the end of a fork, and with the other, she held a paperback open, eyes glued to the page.  She looked sheepishly at me and admitted that she had been looking forward all day to her lunch break so that she could read another chapter in her book.  She was reading the Hunger Games, and although it made me laugh to see her multitasking her salad, I could completely relate. 

For the past two weeks, I've been reading, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith, and it's been such fun to find spare minutes to whisk myself away into the world of the story.  My mom cleaned out her bookshelf and offered this one to me, and even though I knew nothing of the book, I thought it sounded good.  And it really was.  I just finished it tonight while Robi so generously put Flanna to bed, and now I'm soooo sad that it's over. 

Here's a snippet from the book that I really loved.  A young mom is arguing with her mother about whether she should teach her little daughter to believe in Santa and fairies.  The young mom says to her mother:

"I know there is no Santa Claus."
"Yet you must teach the child that these things are so."
"Why?  When I, myself, do not believe?"
"Because, explained Mary Rommely simply, "the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination.  The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were.  It is necessary that she believe.  She must start out by believing in things not of this world.  Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination."

And also, I love this:

"It's a beautiful religion," she mused, "and I wish I understood it more.  No.  I don't want to understand it all.  It's beautiful because it's always a mystery, like God Himself is a mystery."

What books are you reading lately?  I'm always on the lookout for good ones, so I'd love recommendations!