Books. They’re the connection between my mother’s friend Shirley Davis, who has now become my friend, and me.

When we meet for our annual lunch in Windham, we give each other reading suggestions. Lately, we’ve been mailing each other book ideas, which practice is giving us year-long communication instead of once-yearly.

Sometimes she likes the book I have recommended, and sometimes she doesn’t. That doesn’t matter to me, but our connection does.

My love of reading was instilled in me early by my mother, who herself spent many hours reading in her chair by the window. Probably reading was a stress reliever from being a stay-at-home mother. She, in turn, got her love of reading from her mother and her father, who favored Westerns.

My father, not a reader, would do his part on Saturdays by taking his children into Portland to the public library to take out books from the children’s section. How I enjoyed those Saturday mornings! Besides the current books for children, I also read Nancy Drew stories and the Bobbsey Twins.

As a teenager I still liked going to the library. One of my first jobs was as a volunteer shelving books at the temporary library under the stern eye of Miss Marjorie McKenney.

When I went to college, I majored in English. If well-known writers came to campus, I always tried to attend their readings. I liked to see who wrote the prose and poetry. For relaxation I read contemporary women’s fiction, which is primarily what I read today. I’m set in my ways.

Some of those women writers I would recommend to my mother. A few of their books she’d like and others she’d say were “too talky.” She knew better than to suggest any of her crime and mystery books to me — “too grisly.”

My friends are readers, too. Two are librarians, one was an English teacher, and one was a reading specialist.

Starting in 2004, I have kept a list of the books I have read, mostly to keep in mind my favorite authors, but also not to take out the same book twice from the library.

I eagerly await new fiction by Susan Vreeland, Joanne Harris and Julia Glass, to name a few, and also by my old stand-bys, Amy Tan, Gail Godwin and Mary Gordon. Finding an Italian writer, Adriana Trigiani, was a bonus, too, as she writes about Italian families similar to my father’s. I remember once reading that there weren’t many Italian writers because they preferred spoken to written communication. No surprise there!

Setting no goals for myself, I read for pleasure. My cousin Karl, unlike me, sets ambitious goals for his reading each year. Last year he read 30 books.

Last week a note arrived from Shirley asking, “Found another good book?” Quickly I replied, “Yes, ‘The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.’ ” I’ll be eagerly waiting to read if Shirley agrees.

Vicki Sullivan lives in South Portland.