Readers, I know many of us are practicing patience this summer as we wait for our library holds to come in—or for back-ordered books to arrive in the mail. I trust our patience will be rewarded with incredible reading experiences, but why wait for a wonderful reading experience? There are plenty of backlist books to enjoy in the meantime.
In publishing, “backlist” simply means “not newly published.” (Those new titles are referred to as “frontlist.”) These books have been around at least a year or two; they tend to have shorter wait times at the library and are less likely to be on backorder. Many of the authors featured in the Summer Reading Guide have excellent backlists.
Today I’m sharing 15 backlist books from previous Summer Reading Guide authors, a mix of titles from way, way back and fresh titles from the last few years. I hope you find an old-but-new favorite on this list.
If you fall in love with the work of one of these authors, chances are we have a past Book Club event or Stay at Home Book Tour replay waiting for you! Author events and interviews are a great way to bide your time in between library holds.
15 backlist books from 2020 Summer Reading Guide Authors
Some links (including all Amazon links) are affiliate links. More details here.
Iron Lake (Cork O’Connor Book 1)
The Flatshare
The Poet X
The Mothers
A Million Junes
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1)
Euphoria
News of the World: A Novel
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
Perfect Little World
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Next Year in Havana
The Wedding Date
The Garden of Small Beginnings
The Friend Zone
What titles do you have on hold at the library right now?
P.S. This list of book flights pairs 8 hot new releases with 8 backlist titles. Plus 5 authors worth binge reading this summer.
35 comments
My hold list is diverse and as long as they’ll let me make it:
Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (I’m #499! Ha!)
On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (#2048!At least a 6 month wait…)
The 20th Victim by James Patterson
The House of Kennedy by James Patterson
Walk the Wire by David Baldacci
Falling for Her by Debbie Macomber
and
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
And my TBR list is at least five times that long as I try to get through my Kindle reads and all the actual books I have bought lately!
News of the World is fantastic! Enjoy!
The Flat Share was a super cute fun read. Thanks for the recommendation.
I read it too and thought it was fun.
I’ve been on the hold list for On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe since May 4, and I can finally pick it up today! 😀
As an added bonus, A Million Junes by Emily Henry is narrated by Julia Whelan (who also narrates Beach Read).
My library holds are currently Mexican Gothic, The Girl With the Loudon Voice, Clap When You Land, The Henna Artist, Girl Serpent Thorn, and The City We Became. I just got The Vanishing Half and The Jane Austen Society.
The Girl With the Louding Voice is excellent! The main character, Adunni, is such a strong and worthy young woman. You will love her.
Two of my all-time favorites on this list. News of the World and Euphoria. Highly recommend these two for sure.
Currently have on hold:
The Lovely War by Julie Berry
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
The Last Train to Key West
How to be Antiracist
Just picked up: Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto (which I placed pre Covid-19) and The Jane Austen Society
News of the World looks fantastic! Can’t wait for the audio in Sugust! Thanks for recommending!
Also, to balance out “Going Clear”, this is a fascinating read you might want to look at : The Truth About Apostates: The Scientology Story (Exposing Crimes) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1074056450/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3dk.Eb5W4FCJ6
News of the World is fantastic! Enjoy!
I just picked up 9 books from the library yesterday and there are 3 more on hold that I can’t suspend because the library website says they are in transit. They are The Hollows by Jess Montgomery, The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle and Radicalized by Cory Doctorow. The good news is that the library is allowing 2 months to keep books at this point so maybe I’ll be able to get through all of these. I’m trying to read the ones that have the most holds first so that they can go back into circulation. I just started American Dirt last night.
Sharing my perspective on The Friend Zone, I feel like it needs a large red flag and trigger warning for the infertility issues discussed. That “happy” ending was not satisfying for all readers. Instead, it felt like a slap in the face. I get irrationally angry every time I see it mentioned anywhere.
Yes, I also found a couple of the plot points in this book unsettling for its genre. The next book (Happy Ever Playlist) less so, but I agree that this one has some strong triggers.
The Mothers, Flatshare and Poet X are on my backlist! And I HIGHLY recommend Next Year in Havana, as well as her other books! They ALWAYS deliver.
Currently reading News of the World and absolutely loving it–such elegant, lyrical writing and a wonderful story, too. I’m seriously considering reading Simon the Fiddler next.
Most of my upcoming holds are on Libby. I was able to suspend many of my hold dates before our library opened up for curbside pick up so that They could be staggered through summer and fall. The exception was the book on hold I hadn’t been able to pick up before the closure: Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela. Looking forward to adding it into my summer reads.
I went to the library to pick up my requests (first time all year). Got:
The Vacationers
All Fall Down
Ayesha at Last
The Girl in White Gloves
Meet me in Monaco
I think you or one of your guests recommended The Lager Queen of Minnesota, and I am listening to now — and loving it. I fell so hard for the story and the writing that I dashed off an email to the author….and got a very sweet reply the next day. This one is heartfelt!
I’m currently reading Abbi Waxman’s newest – I love her backlist and was really happy to get this one quickly from the library. I’m rereadng American Marriage for my bookclub and keep meaning to get to some of Tayari Jones’s backlist. Some of my library holds are coming in but not many and it seems they are ordering fewer copies which also slows things down.
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones is really good!!
Loved The Garden of Small Beginnings and The Flat Share.
I have several of these on hold already – as well as pretty much the entire summer reading guide! Just read Flatshare and loved it!
I’ve been meaning to read The Mothers for ages, just never quite got to it! Now I feel like I have to before I dive in to The Vanishing Half 😅❤️
The Poet X was fantastic, but I found Euphoria simply depressing. I’m waiting most impatiently for Anti-Racist by Ibrim X. Kendi, Don’t Turn Around by Jessica Berry, The Invicible Summer of Juniper Jones by Daven McQueen, Five Days by Wes Moore, Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland, Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles, Dot Con by James Veitch, The Madwoman and the Roomba by Sandra Tsing Loh, and The Falling Woman by Richard Farrell.
I’m really enjoying your recommendations. Could you please explain what “open door” means?
Thanks!
It means the bedroom door is “open” so you are privy to the details of the romantic encounter rather than “closed” when what happened in the bedroom (or wherever) is more left to the imagination.
Stress having rendered me nearly useless, I find myself unable to actually pick a book to read, and when I’ve tried, I’ve been unable to interest myself in actually reading it. (Is this depression? Probably.) Back in January and February, before everything closed suddenly, I tried an experiment in which I went to my library and picked six books at random, based solely on their titles and cover art (I didn’t read anything about them at all). It was surprisingly successful! I absolutely loved several of them, was intrigued by all of them, and only hated one, based on ethical differences in which I felt the author dehumanized and tokenized the POC in her memoir. Several thousand years later, our library just reopened, allowing holds to be picked up. Still fighting this crippling inability to pick a book to save my life, I’ve just placed holds on all fifteen of these backlist titles! Thank you for helping out a struggling bibliophile in the Age of Corona.
I am finally listening to The Dutch House again on Libby (couldn’t focus back in April and it went back to the library). I finished A Burning, also on Libby, and recommend it. In some ways it made me think of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, though that it a different book, but there are common themes like the experience of Indian Muslims, poverty, and expendable lives. I also read Missed Translations, by yet another Indian-American author. I have Members Only requested at the library, and that too is by an Indian-American. I don’t know if it’s just me coming across all these books, or Indian-American authors are having a moment in the sun! It’s a good thing.
Oh, and I also listened to Eight Perfect Murders on Libby. It references (and spoils) eight books/plays/movies and now I want to read all of them.
I have The Glass Hotel on my nightstand, it’s next in line after The Dutch House. I thought Tom Hanks was way too big a star to perform audiobooks, so my already high opinion of him has edged even higher.
I just finished Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner. Listened on Audiobook. Also finished Loved Walked In by Marissa de los Santos.
On my Library hold list is:
Hello Summer
The Happy Ever After Playlist
I’d Give Anything
And they called It Camelot
Rodham
Mexican Gothic
The Room Where It Happened
The Vanishing Half
Thank you so much for Modern Mrs Darcy!! and Anne Bogel and all the great reads suggested!
I loved “A Garden of Small Beginnings”! “The Flat Share” is on my hold list at the library right now! Waiting for my turn to read it. 🙂
News of the World was one of my first reads during quarantine. I loved it! I’m really looking forward to these holds coming through from the library:
Children of Blood and Bone
Children of Virtue and Vengeance (looks like book 2 will be become available before book 1 – oh no!)
Kindred
Look Both Ways
The Jane Austen Society (it will no longer be summer when this summer read makes its way to me – oh well…) 😉
I rarely re-read a book but have gone back to News of the World twice.
I read News of the World several years ago and loved it so much that I read the The Color of Lightning and Enemy Women, each bringing to life one of the other memorable characters from News.
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge was such a fun, quick read! I highly recommend it. Road trip adventure across the US in 1939, with giraffes.