Coinciding with the National Reading Group Month of October, Barbara and Charlie Mead have published their 2009 selections for their 15th anniversary edition. The 160-page Reading Group Choices, known as the premier guide of books for reading clubs, is now being distributed nationwide.

Julia Older’s award-winning historical novel This Desired Place; The Isles of Shoals on page 134-35 is among the juried books recommended. Each selected title is given a broad-scale, in-depth description along with conversation starter topics for discussion.

In the Introduction to the latest edition, the Meads write: “We honor reading groups, book clubs, readers’ circles and, indeed, any gathering whose members share the joy of reading and literary conversation.”

Their online website is located at www.ReadingGroupChoices.com.

Steve Sherman, author of Primary Crime, a village mystery novel set against the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, visits David Lampe-Wilson’s Mystery on Main Street bookstore in Brattleboro, Vt., October 25 at 2:00 p.m.

Primary Crime is an election-year story loaded with all-too-familiar characters firing bullet rhetoric at everyone but themselves en route to The White House. Just in time for the November 4 ballot day. Good for some New England chuckles, as are Sherman’s other Hugh Quint stories — Maple Sugar Murders and Highboy.

Mention recession and up comes depression, not to mention The Great Depression. But as far as good books in bad times are concerned, it’s not so depressing. One of the tried and true axioms of the book field is that in hard times suddenly more people realize that books compared to iPods and dinner out become inexpensive entertainments. As gifts or personal buys, books of all sizes and subjects turn into pleasures on the cheap.