Modern Guides for the Currently Perplexed

That is to say, books for our time, eh? Here are a few suggestions from your Northport bookseller.

The first is a handy little paperback by Kathryn & Ross Petras, taking its title from the words of Nelson Mandela. If anyone had a right to be discouraged, wouldn’t it have been a man imprisoned for 27 years? This book really is packed with pithy, inspiring, kick-in-the-butt quotations. No wallowing in discouragement or despair! “Screw it, let’s do it!”

“It always to be impossible until it’s done”

by Kathryn & Ross Petras

Paper, 390pp

$9.95

Next, who loves the lessons of The Little Prince? How many other titles by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry have you read? His books on flying are as full as wisdom as that one little children’s story, as you will discover in this book of inspiring quotations from his collected works.

A Guide for Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Hardcover, 83pp

$13.00

Is it fair of me to think these times particularly perplexing for girls and women? Whether or not they are, I do have three titles aimed at right at us (or, men, at the girls and women in your lives).

First suggestion is a book of “empowering, inspirational quotes from over 400 fabulous females” from every walk of life and every age, appropriate for any age but put together with girls in mind. What do we tell our daughters and granddaughters? This stuff.

The Girls’ Book of Wisdom,

Edited by Catherine Dee

Paper, 192pp with index

$17.99

And finally, departing from quotations to visit mini-biographies, we have the last of today’s suggestions for inspirations. Life has always been challenging, but women in all times have risen to the challenges.

Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History

by Sam Maggs & illustrated by Sophia Foster-Dimino

Hardcover, 238pp with index

$16.99

Scratch that “finally” above. I thought I was done, but looking at the table again it occurred to me that Shantyboat, one of the all-time favorite books in our household (along with Wind in the Willows) also qualifies as an inspirational book. Come on in, and I’ll explain why.