There is a lot of road construction in my part of town right now. Since I walk my son to school each morning, I've come to be on a waving-level acquaintance with some of the construction workers. One morning last week the driver of a dump truck almost startled me out of my sneakers by blasting his horn and then giving me a cheery salute.

And that's what I love about living in Concord. It's big enough to have diversity, jobs and culture, but small enough so that we get to know each other.

In my 22 years here, I have met many people who are fascinating, wise, funny and even inspiring. Mostly by design but a bit by coincidence, I have read four books in the past couple years written by Concord-area people I know who are doing important work on a national scale. These books gave me a closer look:

The Last Dance, by Ann McLane Kuster

When Annie and I met we were working on the campaign to preserve Dimond Hill Farm. Her book, The Last Dance, chronicles the ways in which her mother, Susan McLane, and their family met the challenges of the years of change and decline that came with Susan's diagnosis of Alzheimer's, the disease from which she ultimately died in February 2005.

The book shows how the McLanes greeted Alzheimer's with fear and grief, but also respect and humility, using the diagnosis as an opportunity to slow down, to remember a life well lived. McLane, her husband and grown children changed the rhythm of their family as they let go, piece by piece, of the parts that made up Susan McLane, while holding onto and loving the core of who she was.

As a girl Susan McLane was taught that education and politics were the realm of men. Married at 19 to Malcolm (captain of the Dartmouth ski team!), she was content in her traditional life, giving birth to five children in eight years (the fourth child was carried while on crutches with both legs broken from a fall skiing). Always interested in politics, she ran for the Legislature in the 1970s on the platform that she could serve her state and still serve her family dinner each night.

From there she went on to become a strong feminist leader in the state and nation. McLane's life demonstrates for women today that wife, mother and leader do not need to be mutually exclusive experiences, for which I am grateful.

This book gives us a front-row seat into the history of one of New Hampshire's political families (Ann McLane Kuster is now running for Congress). From both Susan's and Malcolm's political campaigns to parties hosted for presidential candidates to the story of Susan McLane's experience as David Souter's

guest at a Supreme Court luncheon, the stories throughout the book are interesting and very often quite funny.

In the Eye of the Storm, by Gene Robinson

I am not actively affiliated with any religious community, but that has not stopped me from being an admirer of Bishop Gene Robinson since I first met him 15 years ago, when he was assistant to the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He is a rare combination of visionary people-person and detail-oriented manager. Plus, he's really fun. In the Eye of the Storm is a collection of essays that could be sermons, written after his ordination as bishop, after he became the most famous openly gay man in the world.

The essays are readable and humble. "Though I've been cast in the role of spokesperson, icon and rabble-rouser," begins one essay, "mostly I think of myself as a simple country bishop and a human being in training."

He writes about his love of the Bible, the miracle of communion experienced in a thatched hut on stilts in the Solomon Islands, and his understanding that he is a role model for gay and lesbian youth - the kind of role model that he never had. He offers theological counterarguments to those who feel homosexuality is an "abomination" and shares humorous stories about his own life to make a point.

Some of the essays are more theological than I could comfortably follow in my sleepy bedtime reading, but his message of kindness, oneness of the human spirit and love of Christ is easy to grasp and appreciate.

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