Five books: For your purse or pocket

Purse books are the books we stash in our purses (or pockets) so we have something to read at the doctor's office, in the carpool line, or on the bus. Size matters in purse books. A purse book must be small, preferably a paperback, and since it's read during interruptible moments its parts must be quickly digestible in manageable literary morsels. Here are five (ish) of my favorite purse books.

"Maps and Legends" by Michael Chabon (Harper Perennial)

This is a gently argumentative book of essays, so it's perfect for your purse. Chabon's voice is strong and he draws you immediately into his sophisticated riffs on genre fiction, fan fiction, golems, writing, thinking about writing, and my favorite, his essay on Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."

"Operating Instructions" by Anne Lamott (Anchor)

LeMott wrote "Operating Instructions" when she realized her son didn't come with any. Even with grown children, this book's journal entries still make me laugh aloud (which can be disconcerting for fellow commuters).

"Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science" by Atul Gawande (Picador)

While I don't recommend you read this if you have a surgery planned, Gawande, who's a surgeon and contributor to the New Yorker, writes engagingly about his year as a resident and how he learned to be a doctor -- mostly from his mistakes.

Poetry makes for the best purse books, so I've included two in one. A good poem is easily savored in small bites and its pleasures linger. If you haven't read much poetry, Firer and Armstrong are very accessible, especially if you've spent time near Lake Michigan or Lake Superior. Each poet elegantly captures who we are and the places that define us.

"Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader" by Anne Fadiman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux )

I love books about books, and Fadiman, known for "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," is a passionate bibliophile and witty intellectual. In this collection of essays, she writes about her family's relationship with reading. The problem with having Fadiman in your purse is that you'll also need a pen. You'll want to note the books she mentions for future reading as well as keep track of all her "sesquipedalian words" you're going to want to use.