I’ve been asking local readers to share with me their wish list for this holiday season. Following are some of the responses… my own reading wish list has just grown quite a bit longer!

Linda Huber, who is an outreach assistant at the Auglaize County District Public Library in Wapakoneta, says: “I am an avid reader and actually have the wonderful opportunity to work at a library. I see what people enjoy reading and also peruse the pre-publication articles in Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal. I tend to enjoy literary fiction and occasionally, nonfiction.” Her list this holiday season includes: “Independent People” by Halldor Laxness, “A Winter’s Night” by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, “All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother’s Dementia” by Alex Witchel, “70% Acrylic 30% Wool” by Viola Di Grado, “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan and “Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of China” by Paul French.

Linda adds that some of these titles are translations of works published abroad and are offered through Europa Press and that the Laxness novel, published in the 1940s, is considered a classic novel of Iceland.

Carol Pennock, an avid reader in Centerville, is hoping for “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver, which also happens to be on the list of Books & Co.’s Sharon Kelly Roth (see the sidebar).

Jerry Kenney, morning show host and producer at WYSO-FM (91.3), recommends “The Timekeeper” by Mitch Albom, which he calls “beautifully done.”

Karla Marie Foley of New Carlisle is hoping for mysteries, mysteries, mysteries! (FYI for mystery lovers, check out these local mystery authors if you haven’t already: Carrie Bebris, Heather Blake, a.k.a. Heather Webber, Tonya Kappes, and Shelley Shepard Gray.)

Julie Moore, writing center director/associate professor of English at Cedarville University and an accomplished poet, is hoping for the new literary memoir “Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me” by Karen Swallow Prior. Well, she was hoping for it. She admits, “I couldn’t wait, so I bought it for myself. I’m hoping to use it in one of my writing classes next year because literacy narratives are all the rage in comp classes these days. I’ve also asked for new books of poems by Mary Oliver (“A Thousand Mornings”) and Sarah M. Wells (“Pruning Burning Bushes”).

Candace Kelly from Springfield is also wishing for poetry, specifically the “2013 Poet’s Market” from Writer’s Digest Books, and poetry by John Ashberry and Mary Jo Bang, and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey’s acclaimed poetry collection “Thrall.”

Finally, Tami Absi, a published short story writer from Yellow Springs, shared that she bought her adult son a book of essays about father-and-son relationships by local author Ralph Keyes, “Sons on Fathers: A book of Men’s Writing.” “I couldn’t wait to give it to him, so he received it early!”

Now, if the above doesn’t give you quite enough ideas for books to ask for/give, how about a gift that celebrates Erma Bombeck, our area’s renowned humorist? The University of Dayton’s Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop is offering a “You Can Write!” coffee mug and an Erma T-shirt exclusively through the University of Dayton Bookstore. All proceeds benefit the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop endowment fund. The popular workshop (next slated for April of 2014) draws more than 350 writers from around the nation to campus every other spring. To order, go to the University of Dayton’s online bookstore available at www.udayton.edu/bookstore/ and search for “Erma.”

And finally, why not give the gift of reading to some special kids — those at Dayton Children’s Medical Center. Books & Co. is sponsoring a Holiday Books & Toy Drive. Simply choose books and toys from the displays throughout the store, in the children’ section, or at the register areas; store associates will collect the donations in boxes at the register through Dec. 24. (The donations are being sent regularly to the children at the hospital.)

Picks from a name

Sharon Kelly Roth of Books & Co. at The Greene says, “These are books I particularly like and would recommend to others.”

Biographies: “The Last Lion (Churchill)” by William Manchester, “Paris: A Love Story” by Kati Marton, “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power” by Jon Meacham, “Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness” by Alexandra Fuller

Novels: “A Wanted Man” by Lee Child, “The Forgotten” by David Baldacci, “The Casual Vacancy” by J. K. Rowling, “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver, “Winter of the World” by Ken Follett (Book 2 of “The Century” trilogy)

Nonfiction: “Far From the Tree” by Andrew Solomon, “The Law of Divine Compensation” by Marianne Williamson, “The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate” by Robert D. Kaplan, “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Cookbooks: “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof” by Ina Garten, “Simply Ming in Your Kitchen” by Ming Tsai

Coffee table books: “Life in Color” by National Geographic photographers, “The Human Face of Big Data” by Rick Smolen and Jennifer Erwitt

Humor: “Encyclopedia Paranoiaca: The Indispensable Guide to Everyone and Everything You Should be Afraid of or Worried About” by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus; Complete & Annotated”

Kids: “The Wimpy Kid Book 7: The Third Wheel” by Jeff Kinney, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” by Lemony Snicket, “Oh, No!” by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann, “Andrew Drew and Drew” by Barney Salzberg