BEST AUTHOR BEST : SUSAN STRAIGHT

LIVING among traveling nurses in Southern California during the pandemic led to ''Sacrament,'' her 10th novel. Our memories will be indelible,'' she says, '' like my father's stories of the Dust Bowl.''

.-  Describe your ideal reading experience.

As a child, the oldest of five, with a Swiss-born mother who gave me endless chores. I had to hide in a tree to read. I will read anywhere. I raised three daughters as a single mom.

I love to read in my car, in the bleachers, at the doctor's office, but especially on my porch - behind a hedge so no one can see me.

.-  What books are on your night stand?

'' Indian Horse,'' by Richard Wagamese ; '' Nightshade,'' by Michael Connelly ;

'' Lila,'' by Marilynne Robinson ; '' Under the Feet of Jesus,'' by Helena Maria Viramontes, because I'm teaching it again and I reread it every year with pleasure.

.-  What's your favorite book no one else has heard of?

'' Of Love and Dust,'' by Ernest J. Gaines, checked out from the public library when I was 15. Set in Louisiana in the 1940s, when a young man like thousands of others is incarcerated on a pretext, then leased out to a plantation farm, where he refuses to bow down.

The dialogue and sly humor sing exactly the same notes as the older people I grew up around.

.-  What's the last great book you read?

I finished '' Indian Horse'' last night. Every five pages, I'd become tearful, holding my sleeping newborn grandson while reading, seeing the narrator and other indigenous children. taken forcibly from their families to Indian residential schools.

.-  What's the most terrifying book you've ever read ?

'' The Killer of Little Shepherds,'' by Douglas Starr, a true-crime book about the serial murderer Joseph Vacher, who randomly chose and killed people in the French countryside in the late 1800s.

.-  What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

When I was 17-year-old college freshman, my English professor was Gloria Watkins, who'd just gotten her Ph.D.

She was so kind to me and, in her office, chose two paperbacks from her shelf :

'' Child of the Dark : The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus,'' from Brazil; and ''Nectar in a Sieve,'' by Kamala Markandaya, set in India.

I have them here on my desk, always. The women portrayed were defiant, badass and resourceful, like Professor Watkins - who soon after changed her name to bell hooks.

The Publishing continues to Part [2]. The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.