This nail-biter unravels the story of two girls who disappeared from the same tiny North Carolina town a decade apart. Ten years ago Nicolette Farrell left her hometown for good after her best friend vanished without a trace. The real twist here is the interesting format: after a short prologue, the story is told in reverse, starting with day 15 of the mystery and workings backwards to day 1. This would feel like a cheap trick if done poorly, but it wasn't, and I loved it. A dark kind of fun. More info →

A fabulous twisty psychological thriller from the 2017 Summer Reading Guide. The story opens when Kit and Laura are taking pains to keep any trace of their existence off the internet. We soon learn this is because of an event they witnessed at an eclipse festival in 1999, which had devastating consequences for all involved, consequences that still endanger them today. I loved this one, and have been thrilled to see readers giving it so much love. More info →

In the 11th installment of Penny's Three Pines series, a young boy stumbles upon an inexplicable, frightening something that's been hiding in the woods for a long, long time, revealing that the town's history is darker than anyone imagined. More info →

This Pulitzer winner manages to be serious and seriously funny. The hero is Arthur Less, who is facing his 50th birthday, his ex-boyfriend of nine year's wedding to another, and his publisher's rejection of his latest manuscript, all at the same time. He decides to hit the road—and on this trip, everything that can go wrong, does. Nonstop puns on the author's name, an arch sense of humor, and an interesting narrative structure keep this book filled with sad things from feeling downcast. When I got to the end I was strongly tempted to immediately begin again. The follow-up, Less Is Lost is also on sale. More info →

From the publisher: "From the #1 international bestselling author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon comes an education in the art of articulation, from the King James Bible to Katy Perry… From classic poetry to pop lyrics, from Charles Dickens to Dolly Parton, even from Jesus to James Bond, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase—such as 'O Captain! My Captain!' or 'To be or not to be'—memorable. In his inimitably entertaining and wonderfully witty style, he takes apart famous phrases and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or quip like Oscar Wilde. Whether you're aiming to achieve literary immortality or just hoping to deliver the perfect one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don't need to have anything important to say—you simply need to say it well. In an age unhealthily obsessed with the power of substance, this is a book that highlights the importance of style." More info →

This stunning anthology embodies the collaborative spirit it celebrates. "We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond." This line from a Gwendolyn Brooks poem serves as the epigraph and guiding spirit of this magnificent collection, which includes essays, poems, photographs, and conversations from fabulous contributors like Michael Twitty, Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Alexander, Margaret Wilkeron Sexton, and Ross Gay. In addition to gathering beautiful poetry and reflective essays, the author of Queen Sugar travelled the country to interview Black farmers, winemakers, and culinary experts about the African American land-owning and farming experience, both past and present. Their wide-ranging and richly varied stories make for life-giving and community-changing reading. More info →

From the author of Meet Me at the Museum, a story of three women brought together by a small narrowboat who embark together on a journey through the river canals of rural England. One woman anxiously awaits a surgery, one has given up her ordinary life to become a free spirit, one is unsure if she'll return to her husband when the journey is done—but until those looming realities need to be faced, they'll spend the summer together (along with one small dog) enjoying the scenery as they wend their way down the river at 4mph. More info →

Beanland's sophomore novel (following Florence Adler Swims Forever) is based on the very real Richmond Theater fire that killed 72 people on December 26, 1811. Beanland tells the story through the eyes of four survivors, some of whom are more fictionalized than others: the teenage stagehand whose mistake causes a backdrop to ignite, a wealthy young widow who survives by jumping from a window, an enslaved blacksmith who helps many white women escape the blazing theater, and a young female slave who wonders if she might use the fire as an opportunity to escape. Whispersync narration available. I enjoyed listening to the full-cast narration of this steadily-paced, thoroughly researched historical tale. More info →

Cross The Holiday with Sliding Doors and you’ll get a sense of Harbison’s adult debut. After a disastrous thirtieth birthday party, Meg books a getaway to the quaint Irish village where she had once dreamed of moving. That’s when things get weird: everyone seems to know her already. She has an apartment and friends and a hot ex who’s none too pleased to see her. Most shocking of all: in this version of her life, her best friend, who died in a car accident just before college, is alive and well. So why isn’t Meg happy? Harbison asks important questions about choice, contentment, and what makes for a meaningful life. I found it utterly unputdownable. More info →

Brigid says: The best way to describe this endearing sci-fi/ horror is Dracula, Frankenstein, and more in space! Delightfully filled with callbacks and Easter eggs inspired by classic monsters, I quickly fell in love with the found family of both human and non-human crew and passengers. There is the ship’s main AI, Demeter, who awakes after deep space travel to a ship full of dead passengers and a monster on board. Stewart, the snarky med bot, who is just trying to keep a tidy medical bay. And my favorite character I’ve met in recent years, the extremely charming and hilarious “Steve” who may not be there for the right reasons. With a full cast narration, the audiobook is fabulously immersive but heads up: there are binary code sequences read out loud at the beginning of chapters that can be easily sped up if they become tiresome. Unique, fun, and a tad bit gross, this is the type of entertaining read that I just want to push into readers' hands or earbuds! More info →

Stead's Newbery-winning book is wrapped around an old one: Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which just happens to be the favorite of 6th grader Miranda Sinclair. Miranda's life is pretty normal, until things begin to unravel. I loved the setting of late 1970s Manhattan; Miranda's life looks so different from the lives of today's kids. A clever tale of friendship, mystery, and time travel. More info →

This is on my TBR stack, because a wide variety of readers keep telling me it's a perfect read if you like the idea of escaping into another world, including Chelsey and Curtis from episode 164 of WSIRN. Curtis called it well-written with characters he loved. Kirkus says this futuristic novel is reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones. More info →

Libro.fm is running a sale on several titles this month. They're my go-to for audiobooks these days; read more about Libro.fm here. No membership required for most sale prices, including this one. The ebook is not on sale. This National Book Award winner offers a snapshot of the 1960s and 70s punk rock scene in New York City and the Chelsea Hotel. Singer-songwriter and poet Smith focuses on her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, fulfilling a promise she made to him. Many people describe this as a lyrical memoir; I haven’t read it yet but hope to remedy that soon: Will says he thinks I’ll like it. It's also on Rory Gilmore's reading list. Add Audible narration (read by Patti Smith). More info →

Great recipes and beautiful photos about cooking vegetables, from a chef who isn't a vegetarian. More info →

Imagine a grown-up take on The Parent Trap, with a lot more twin troubles and a lot fewer tween giggles. When they were 17, Harper and Tabitha's parents divorced. Tabitha went with her mom to Nantucket; Harper went with her dad to Martha's Vineyard. Now 39, the twins haven't spoken in years, and each has heaps of her own troubles—love, family, work, you name it. For reasons that are easy to read but hard to explain, the twins end up trading islands to work through the latest crisis. They call Nantucket native Elin Hilderbrand queen of the summer novel for a reason; the islands themselves have so much personality in these pages that it feels like very realistic escapist fiction. A previous Summer Reading Guide pick. More info →

Recommended for fans of Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn. From the publisher: "In Boston's North End, four immigrant women leave childhood behind—but never one another. Escaping tradition doesn’t come easy. The friends face family clashes and romantic entanglements, career struggles and cultural prejudice. But through their unfailing bond, forged through their weekly gathering, they'll draw strength—and the courage to transform their immigrant stories into the American lives of their dreams." More info →

I started my first Daniel Silva novel, the 16th book in this series. The books stand alone, but I enjoyed it so much that I was inspired to go back and start here, at the beginning of the series, where Silva first introduces his readers to Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon. More info →

Readers who couldn't get enough C. S. Lewis as a kid are often urged to move on to his Space Trilogy as they get older. Once again, he sets his fantasies against the backdrop of classical mythology and biblical imagery; his characters encounter extraordinary creatures, fight epic battles, and come face to face with deep wisdom. The first book in the series tells the story of Dr. Ransom, a Cambridge professor who discovers after he's abducted that he's been taken from the "silent planet" of Earth. J. R. R. Tolkien inspired Lewis to write this story, and the character of Dr. Ransom is largely based on him. More info →

Both Anthony Horowitz Sherlock Holmes titles are on sale at the moment. From the publisher: "London, 1890. 221B Baker St. A fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help. He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap - a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place. Almost unwillingly, Holmes and Watson find themselves being drawn ever deeper into an international conspiracy connected to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston, the gaslit streets of London, opium dens and much, much more. And as they dig, they begin to hear the whispered phrase-the House of Silk-a mysterious entity that connects the highest levels of government to the deepest depths of criminality. Holmes begins to fear that he has uncovered a conspiracy that threatens to tear apart the very fabric of society." More info →

This historical novel centers two young Black women in the 1950s: Ruby is an ambitious high school sophomore in a single-parent family of limited means in Philadelphia; Eleanor is a promising student at Howard University who, despite her working class upbringing, soon finds herself moving in the upper echelon of DC’s Black society. Both women have big hopes and dreams for their futures: they want love and marriage and family, as well as college degrees and satisfying careers. But shortly after each falls in love, big changes happen—and hard choices have to be made. A good story, well-told, with a satisfying ending. Be sure not to miss the author’s note! More info →

Libro.fm is running a sale on several titles this month. They're my go-to for audiobooks these days; read more about Libro.fm here. No membership required for most sale prices, including this one. The ebook is not on sale. This stirring debut novel follows three generations of Vietnamese American women in the wake of the death of their beloved matriarch. “Secrets never stay hidden,” muses one character. “Someone always has to deal with the fallout.” Across the generations and in rotating points of view, we see each woman deal with both the burdens she inherited and the secrets she keeps from her daughter out of love, and how this well-intentioned choice causes terrible harm to all. But even after one family member dies, it might not be too late for the surviving women to reunite in their Florida home under the banyan tree for one more attempt at understanding and redemption. More info →

In this nonfiction adventure-slash-history, Fedarko and his long-time photojournalist pal Pete McBride celebrate the National Park Service centennial by embarking on a 750-mile end-to-end traverse—described by many as "the toughest hike in the world"—across Grand Canyon National Park, which Fedarko calls both the most visited and least understood park. During their year in the canyon, they come face to face with the grandeur and terror of their landscape: it gets so hot the glue on their shoes melts, then so cold their boots freeze solid overnight, and the pair endure more than one (absolutely terrifying and often nauseating) near-death experience. Along the way we meet the very few intrepid explorers who know the canyons best, as well as the Native people who've known it longest. Fedarko narrates his own audiobook; Whispersync narration available. More info →

In this long-awaited memoir, Well-Read Black Girl founder Edim describes her love story with the books that shaped her, saved her, and became the foundation for her life’s work. I loved learning the origins of her book club, and how she discovered the magic of connecting with others through a shared love of reading. She also shares about her family of origin: her father’s return to Nigeria when she was young, her mother’s unhappy second marriage, and her mother’s deep depression. Books were a solace throughout, and the comfort and joy she found in cherished writers like Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and many others is palpable in these pages. This love letter to books and reading will inspire deeper reading and reflection for those who pick it up. More info →

From the publisher: "Would a proper adult ignore the spilt milk under the fridge for weeks? Would a proper adult take three years to post a solitary Christmas card? Would a proper adult have decades-old underwear in active service? Mike Gayle is nowhere near being a proper adult - even though his tenth wedding anniversary is looming; his second child is due any moment; and in less than twenty-four hours he is going to be officially closer to forty than he is to thirty. Appalled by this lack of maturity, Mike draws up a To-Do list containing every single item he's been meaning to do but just keeps putting off... He's got a lot of stuff that needs doing. But unlike previous To-Do lists, he promises himself that this one will actually get DONE. And along the way, Mike will learn stuff about life (323), love (999), friends (1004) and family (9) and finally work out what it means to be a grown up (846)." More info →

From the publisher: "Mira Salvi has the perfect life—a job she loves, a fiancé everyone adores, and the secure future she’s always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn’t a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone. While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira does: journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story. As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason…right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn’t been written yet either." More info →

From the publisher: "Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships—rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. Now the fortunes of one of Bingtown’s oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia. For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy. For Althea's young nephew, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard the Vivacia, the ship is a life sentence. But the fate of the ship—and the Vestrits—may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider: the ruthless buccaneer captain Kennit, who plans to seize power over the Pirate Isles by capturing a liveship and bending it to his will." More info →

From the publisher: "Tilda Finch is a successful businesswoman, a mother to two wonderful adult daughters, and besides an unexpected divorce, she’s living a relatively happy life. Until she wakes up one morning and her finger seems to have disappeared. She thinks back to the kombucha she drank the night before—perhaps it was spiked? Studying herself in the mirror, she discovers one of her ears has also disappeared! She rushes to the doctor, who after a multitude of tests says she's sorry to inform her that she has invisibility, a disorder that affects millions of women worldwide, mostly after the age of forty—she is disappearing, and there is no cure. Tilda isn't overly surprised. She's felt invisible for years. But after attending a support group for women like her and seeing how resigned they are to simply fading away, she thinks there must be a better way. Hesitant, she seeks out a controversial therapist who compels her to realize that she can't expect the world to see her if she can’t first see herself. And the new man she meets, who she thinks is blind to her faults, might just see her more clearly than anyone has ever before. Because if we can get the voices in our heads to stop being so critical and be more compassionate, we might realize how wonderful we truly are." More info →

From the publisher: "So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems. Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints. But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable. So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention? Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset. One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system. A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out—as early as the ninth grade. A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation’s culture. And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge—and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas. How many problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we've forgotten that we can fix them?" More info →

I read this back in April out of pure voyeuristic curiosity and it was a really good book. This is a big personal story, but more literary in nature. From the publisher: "In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea-and how she made it to shore. In candid, sur­prisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife-the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn't ask for. And, drawing on all resources-from without and within-Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point. More than one woman's story, Awake is a critical analysis of the story given to all of us: the story of gender limitations, religious subservience, body shame, self-erasure. With refreshing candor, Jen explores a midlife renaissance-grieving what's lost, cherishing possibility, and entering the second half of life wide awake." More info →

From the publisher: "Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start." Add Whispersync narration. More info →