2022 Minimalist Summer Reading Guide

Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

by Mary Laura Philpott

Among the finest—perhaps THE finest—memoir-in-essays I’ve ever read. This intimate look at family life is like sitting down with a trusted friend to talk about what matters most in life. Philpott’s leaping-off point is her teenage son’s middle-of-the-night medical emergency. She never sees it coming, but later wondered, Should I have known? He stabilized, but nothing is the same after that pivotal moment. In the aftermath, Philpott explores her long-held desire to keep those she loves safe through sheer will or worrying—but if that doesn’t work, what can we do instead? She wrestles through the answers in these pages. Witty and candid, deeply relatable, humorous and heartstopping, with tales of hypothetical disaster balanced with restful interludes featuring Frank the Turtle and the Philpott family dogs. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll text all your friends. For fans of Kelly Corrigan’s The Middle Place, with interesting parallels to Nicki Erlick’s The Measure.

Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

A life-affirming tale of a chemist ahead of her time, a life-changing love affair, a dog with a huge vocabulary, and the combustible combination of chemistry, cooking, and afternoon television. Elizabeth Zott only ever wanted to be a scientist—but because she’s a woman in the 1960s, she has to go begging for beakers despite being the smartest researcher in the building. After Elizabeth is ostensibly fired for being unwed and pregnant (but really for being smarter than her boss and dating a rival scientist he loathes), she can’t make ends meet. Out of desperation she accepts a job hosting a tv show called Supper at 6. She loves to cook, because cooking, after all, is chemistry. The producers want her to smile and look pretty, but Elizabeth is much more interested in teaching housewives not just how to make dinner, but how to change their lives. Lively and life-affirming, with an unforgettable protagonist.

The Cartographers

by Peng Shepherd

A page-turning literary mystery with a dynamite premise and a little bit of magic. Seven years ago, cartographer Nell Young lost everything—her career, her reputation, her fiancé, and her family—because of an argument over a cheap gas station map. After her esteemed cartographer father unexpectedly dies, Nell learns he’d been working on some sort of secret project connected to the map, which isn’t junk at all but an incredibly rare and hotly sought-after artifact—and her knowledge of its existence may put her very life in danger. A sophisticated scavenger hunt ensues, leading Nell to a secretive and powerful band of mapmakers called The Cartographers, and to closely guarded secrets held by her own family. A gripping and inventive story of family secrets, found family, second chances, and cartography, set against the backdrop of the storied New York Public Library. For fans of Shepherd’s The Book of M and Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January.

Chirp

Portrait of a Thief

by Grace D. Li

Five Chinese American college students become justice-driven international art thieves in this Ocean’s Eleven-ish heist novel. When he’s made an offer he can’t refuse, MIT student Will Chen recruits four brilliant accomplices—all with looming midterms—to fulfill an audacious goal: to break into art museums in five countries, in order to steal back artifacts that were once wrongfully stolen from China. If they succeed, they’ll receive a life-changing $50 million payout. The heist storyline pops and fizzes, but Li crams in plenty of substance alongside her flashy plot: an exploration of identity and belonging, crushing familial expectations, desires, love, and calling, plus meaningful LGBTQ representation and the seamless integration of pandemic realities. Word to the wise: This reads more Hollywood than real life but you’ll enjoy the ride. For fans of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Daniel Silva’s The Cellist.

Take My Hand

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

A timely and gripping work of historical fiction loosely inspired by the real-life groundbreaking court case of Relf v Weinberger. In 2016 Memphis, distinguished Black doctor Civil Townsend prepares to retire. First she must journey to her hometown of Montgomery to make peace with the past and tell the truth of it to her own daughter. In alternating timelines, Civil reveals all that unfolded in 1973, when she was a young and idealistic nurse, stepping into her first job at a reproductive clinic serving Black women in her community. She cared deeply for the girls under her care, but grew alarmed at what she was called upon to do: administer experimental and perhaps unnecessary treatments to young patients without their understanding or consent. When the unthinkable happens to one patient and she is sterilized without consent, Civil becomes involved in a landmark lawsuit. A moving story and a testament to fiction’s power to influence hearts and impact lives. For fans of Kaia Alderson’s Sisters in Arms and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

An intoxicating and wholly unexpected epic of love, art, belonging, betrayal, and … video games. This is the story of Sam and Sadie, two childhood friends who meet in a hospital game room in 1986. They come from completely different worlds, but bond immediately over video games. Eight years later, as students at separate Boston colleges, the pair reunite and bootstrap a Tempest-inspired video game that becomes an unexpected blockbuster, cementing their future as game designers but bringing upheaval into their personal lives. I don’t have much interest in video games but I adored this book, which is ultimately about creativity and ambition, astonishing success and what comes after, and the inevitable hurts and disappointments of a life-defining friendship. It’s a stirring meditation on the intrinsic hopefulness of games, and what they might mean for us all. Content warnings apply. For fans of Free Guy, Grace Li’s Portrait of a Thief, and Alice Elliott Dark’s Fellowship Point.

2022 Minimalist Summer Reading Guide