I love books — hardcovers, paperbacks, audio or ebooks for Kindle and iPad — each format has its special virtues. I love narrative nonfiction, classic novels, anthologies, works of scholarship full of marginalia, poetry, children’s picture books and young adult page-turners.

In our family, we jumped into books early, drawn to the promise of magic within. My parents — both journalists — got us writing on typewriters almost before we could walk. My father wrote a political column, TV scripts and campaign speeches for US senators. My mother edited books on Japanese flower arranging. An uncle published a detective novel. One sister wrote a cowgirl novel underneath the kitchen table at age 11; another sister teaches English literature; still another is a poet. Similarly, my children are good writers and, with persistence, some may do it for a living.

Thus surrounded by books and writers past and present, I know that books are the currency of ideas with the power to inform, entertain and persuade — vehicles to foment change. All power to the book!

Books to explore the wild side make good gifts, signed for you, family members or friends