I visited with a dear acquaintance recently before a cooking class at Rudy’s. She had been a forever customer of my bookstore, so it wasn’t surprising that after the requisite how-are-yous the conversation immediately turned to books. One of the things she mentioned was that Buhl’s Mentor Book Club has been meeting for more than 75 years!

Those women who came here with their entrepreneurial husbands knew the value of education and the pleasure of sharing books. Their early days of white-gloved afternoon teas featured carefully researched reviews (without Googling), and the Mentor Club members looked forward to their gatherings, which provided welcome relief from the challenges of taming this new land.

I am often asked to recommend titles for book clubs, which of course, I love to do. But alas! Time and space do not permit all my favorites. Here are but a few from my latest list:

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak (Knopf, $11.99). It is unfortunate this book is labeled and sold as a “young adult novel”; while it belongs on every high school reading list, it is definitely a captivating story for book lovers and unquestionably one that will generate much discussion.

The setting is Nazi Germany, and the book thief is a 9-year-old girl named Liesel Meminger; Death is the narrator. They meet when Death comes to take her little brother. “I traveled the globe ... handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity,” Death writes. “I warned myself that I should keep a good distance from the burial of Liesel Meminger’s brother. I did not heed my advice.” Death and Liesel both have a way with words. And we are reminded that words can be good, as well as evil. After all, what would Hitler have been without words? What would any of us be?

“Language of Baklava: A Memoir” by Diana Abu-Jaber (Anchor, $14.95). What could have been yet another ho-hum “memoir with recipes” is instead a delectable culinary account of Abu-Jaber’s cultural duality and an insightful journey into her world of family, food and rootlessness. Her family moves from America to Jordon, then back again; she struggles to find her place in both cultures, always under the shadow of her colorful, comedic father. The story and recipes combine to make this rich, dense and achingly funny.

“Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann (Random House, $25). Described by beloved author Frank McCourt as a “groundbreaking heartbreaking symphony of a novel,” McCann’s volume paints a sweeping canvas of New York City in 1974, and Philippe Petit’s illicit 1974 high-wire walk between the twin towers.

But the walker fades into the background as the stories of the people below become the focal point. From the Irish monk living in the Bronx projects to the Park Avenue mother mourning her dead son, the reader is drawn into the tapestry of their interwoven lives and the country’s pivotal summer.

“Sarah’s Key” by Tatiana de Rosnay (St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95). Over the past decades, the Holocaust has been the backdrop for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of novels.

One might think all the horror stories of that time have been told, but de Rosnay shines a fierce light on a shocking wrong that will leave readers haunted and profoundly moved.

A discovery made during American magazine writer Julia Jarmond’s research marking the 60th anniversary of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundups shakes her world, marriage and family.

I guarantee: You will not be able to put it down, and group discussions will be lengthy. (Interesting author note: Parisian-born, de Rosnay is of English, French and Russian descent. “Sarah’s Key” is her 10th published novel, but the first written in English, her mother tongue).

“The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” by Timothy Egan (Mariner Books, $14.95). This extraordinary National Book Award winner fills in the blanks on a period of American history usually focused on the Great Depression.

On April 14, 1935, a “black blizzard” struck.

This massive dust storm, stretching from the Dakotas to Amarillo, Texas, wreacked havoc on an already reeling country. It was not the first, but was by far the largest of hundreds of dust storms that decimated the plains during the ’30s.

Egan’s interviews of survivors gleaned remarkable stories of courage, desperation and hope. A powerful and heart-wrenching book.

Judi Baxter owned and operated Judi’s Bookstore in downtown Twin Falls from 1978 to 1992. From 2000 to 2004 she wrote a twice-weekly column for Publisher’s Weekly’s online edition called “Reviews in the News.”