From Jim Ritter of the Sun-Times:

Best page turner: "Presumed Innocent" by Scott Turow. Courtroom thriller about an attorney falsely accused of murder. Turow's first novel is, by far, his best. It will keep you guessing right up to the end.

Best biography: "Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro. This is volume three of Caro's four-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. If you are a history buff, and haven't read Caro, you're in for a treat.

Best Oprah pick: "I Know This Much is True" by Wally Lamb. Long (912 pages) but highly readable family saga revolving around twin brothers, one crazy and one mourning over the break-up of his marriage.

Best love story: "Endless Love" by Scott Spencer. A novel about the tragic consequences of loving too much.

Great American Novel: "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. If you haven't read this since high school, give it another shot.

Best adventure story: "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. Riveting first-person account of a disastrous 1996 expedition up Mount Everest.

From Mike Ulreich, Guild President:

"The Fifties" by David Halberstram: If you lived through the 50s or merely

heard about it, Halberstram recasts the period in the way he always does, highly

readable and entertaining: Elvis, Ike, Nixon, the Sputnik, Castro, the first

career moves of a young minister named Martin Luther King and a young president

named JFK. (In describing a transition period of General Motors the author

notes that one GM executive was upset "about nothing less than the entire

purpose of American industry, whether it was to make the best product possible of

whether it was merely to make the maximum profit possible each year. The two,

it turned out, were not mutually compatible-not by a long shot.'' Sound

familiar?

"The Outfit" by Gus Russo: It starts slowly with a recap of pre-Prohibition

Chicago, but it unfolds a story that amazes the reader with not only the power

of the Chicago mob but its complicity in national affairs. The unlikely hero is

not American law enforcement agents but Murray "The Camel' Humphreys, the

Welsh-born brains behind the boys.

"The Summer of My Greek Taverna" by Tom Stone-a young American expatriate

writer, his French wife and two children attempt to run a restaurant honestly on

the Greek island of Patmos. In leasing the restaurant he has to contend with

Greek politics, dead Nazis and the restaurant's owner, Theologos Includes

recipes and may be located in your book store's cooking section.

"Blue Latitudes" by Tony Horwitz…The author of Baghdad Without a Map and

Confederates in the Attic "boldly goes where Captain Cook has gone before.' Horwitz

is always amusing, entertaining and interesting at the same time.

Books I have which I am about to read and will report on soon: "Balzac and

the Little Chinese Seamstress" by Dai Sijie, a book about reading and China's

Cultural Revolution, "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields, the Oak Park native who

passed away this summer in Canada, where she moved with her husband. Shields

won a Pulitzer Prize for Stone Diaries, "The Sahara" by Michael Palin, a

write-up with photos of his PBS series. A former silly member of the Monty Python

comedy troupe, Palin is actually becoming a distinguished writer. If you ever

have the opportunity read his novel, Hemingway's Chair.

If you have any summer reading recommendations, or hints for fall or winter