“I’m currently bouncing back and forth between two:

“‘Us Against You,’ the second book in Fredrik Backman’s Beartown trilogy. It’s still hockey season and Backman writes compellingly about a small rural town that runs (for better and for worse) on hockey. It’s filled with great characters, rivalries, politics and small (and large) kinds of violence on and off the ice.

“Clint Smith’s ‘How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America.’ Smith writes deeply and eloquently about seven different places in this country and examines the long tail of slavery and how it has seeped into so much of what we do and think and how we conceive of ourselves.” —GIBSON FAY-LEBLANC, Executive Director, Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance

Mainers, please email to tell us about the book on your bedside table right now. In a paragraph or two, describe the book and be sure to tell us what drew you to it. We want to hear what you are reading and why. Send your selection to pgrodinsky@pressherald.com, and we may use it as a future Bedside Table.