001-Past Summer Reading Guides

Field Notes on Love

by Jennifer E. Smith

When Hugo Wilkinson’s girlfriend Margaret unexpectedly breaks up with him, he’s left with a broken heart and an extra ticket for the trip of a lifetime they’d planned to take together between high school and college. It would be a grand adventure and an opportunity for Hugo to get out of his siblings’ shadow for a bit. As one of the famed Surrey sextuplets, there’s very little he gets to do on his own. That’s why Hugo would be happy to travel alone, but there’s a catch—Margaret Campbell booked the nonrefundable, nontransferable tickets for their cross-country American rail adventure in her name, which means if the trip is going to happen, he needs to find another Margaret Campbell. What follows is a story of chance, friendship, coming out of your shell, and into your own … while maybe finding love on the way. Part coming-of-age story, part romance, part travel adventure, and wholly absorbing.

The Perfect Couple

by Elin Hilderbrand

Well this is new: a murder mystery from Nantucket novelist Hilderbrand that brings back beloved past characters. Celeste and Benji’s wedding is supposed to the big event of the season … until Celeste finds her maid of honor’s body floating in the bay on her wedding day. She was up before dawn because she was sneaking away from the scene of the festivities with a packed bag. Everyone thought Celeste and Benji were the perfect couple, so what is going on? As the Nantucket police open their investigation, the timeline moves back and forth between the wedding weekend and the start of the couple’s relationship, allowing the reader to slowly put the pieces together. This easy-reading mystery features well-developed characters, a solid plot, plus the food and style readers expect from Hilderbrand.

The Invention Of Wings

by Sue Monk Kidd

Charleston, November 1803. Sarah Grimké turns 11. Her birthday gift? A slave named Hetty ("Handful"). This sweeping novel tells the story—in alternating voices—of real-life abolitionist Sarah Grimké and the wholly imagined slave Handful through several decades and up and down the East Coast during a tumultuous time in American history. A can’t miss for fans of The Help or Monk Kidd’s first hit, The Secret Life of Bees. An engaging mix of fact and fiction.

The Last Romantics

by Tara Conklin

I love a story within a story: this novel begins with Fiona Skinner, renowned poet, revealing the story behind one of her famous poems—which leads to the tale of herself and her siblings. Early tragedy forged a strong bond between the four Skinner children, but it also broke them in ways that don’t become apparent for many years. Decades later, another unfolding tragedy makes them question everything they know about their family. The story feels Intimate, yet expansive, while exploring the power of stories, and the bonds that keep us together. A sweeping family saga.

Convenience Store Woman

by Sayaka Murata

This quirky little book is unlike anything I've ever read. Keiko was an uncommon child with worried parents until she takes on a job in a convenience store. They relax that she's found a pleasant and predictable routine while at university. But eighteen years later, she is still working her low-level job, and doesn't understand why society expects more from her than that. In fact, she doesn't seem to understand society's expectations—or how to conform to them—at all. Hot tip: critics are comparing Keiko to French heroine Amélie, although the two live different lives in different worlds.

The Main Dish

by Michael Ruhlman

Michael Ruhlman has written more than a dozen books on cooking and has worked with an impressive list of chefs (among them Thomas Keller, Michael Symon, Eric Ripert). Ruhlman knew since he was a kid that he wanted to write for a living, but he never intended to be a food writer. In this Kindle single (10,000 words/35 pages, and just $2), Ruhlman shares the improbable story of how he found his calling. Remember, he’s friends with Bourdain--this one’s briefly crude at two or three places.

A Bridge Across the Ocean

by Susan Meissner

Brette can see ghosts—she's had the sight since she was a child, same as her grandmother. When she's summoned by an uneasy ghost to put to rest unfinished business on the Queen Mary, she feels she has no choice but to comply. That summons plunges her into the fascinating and fraught history of the hundreds of war brides the ship carried across the ocean following the war—and one particular mystery that has never been solved. Reminiscent of Kate Morton, but with ghosts. A paperback original. Publication date: March 14.

Only Ever Her

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

In small-town Ludlow, South Carolina, Annie Taft’s wedding is set to be the social event of the year, and maybe even the decade. Everyone knows and loves Annie; they’ve looked out for her ever since her mother was killed when she was three years old, and they’re eager to turn out for her big day. But then the bride vanishes, three days before the wedding. Those close to her know Annie needs her space, and they don’t worry much—in the early hours. But as the wedding draws ever nearer they begin to fear that she’s not simply dealing with cold feet. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Annie went missing right after her mother’s alleged killer was released from prison due to problems with his trial—problems for which Annie herself shares responsibility. Rotating perspectives and a slew of uncovered secrets keep you on your toes, and you won’t find out what really happened until the final pages.

Every Wild Heart

by Meg Donohue

With novels like How to Eat a Cupcake and All the Summer Girls, Meg Donohue is no stranger to the summer reading scene. This year she's back with a story inspired by Delilah Rene Luke, host of radio show Delilah After Dark, which Donohue fondly remembers as "part soap opera, part therapy session, and part corny music extravaganza." (That fact alone made me want to read it.) In this novel, Delilah becomes Gail Gideon, a local talk show host who's life becomes very complicated, very quickly, when her horse-loving teen daughter suffers a traumatic brain injury, at about the same time that a stalker forces her way into G.G.'s life, threatening G.G. and her family. If that sounds grim, take heart: with Donohue's light touch this becomes a warm, uplifting read. Publication date: March 14.

I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time

by Laura Vanderkam

Can a woman truly have it all? 168 Hours author Vanderkam explores what true balance looks like, meticulously upending the dominant culture narrative that presume a woman’s professional success comes only at great personal cost. In this data-driven narrative, based on hundreds of time logs from successful professionals, she shows how women who “have it all” succeed at work, enjoy their families, and make time for themselves. An important (and readable) contribution to the ongoing discussion of work/life balance, and I’m not saying this just because a post on this blog inspired the study.

Waiting for Tom Hanks

by Kerry Winfrey

Annie Cassidy is a Nora Ephron-obsessed writer who dreams of both writing a rom com and finding a Tom Hanks of her own to love. Those dreams begin to come true when a Hollywood film crew invades her Columbus neighborhood to shoot a new romantic comedy featuring the handsome Drew Danforth … who Annie believes to be an overgrown manchild who cares more about on-set pranks than acting the part of a serious film star. But as Annie gets to know the people on set better, her life starts to take on an eerie resemblance to some of her favorite movies. This familiar story feels fresh and fun in Winfrey’s hands, and absolutely oozes charm. (In this closed-door romance, the sexy stuff is present, but happens offscreen.)

Happiness for Beginners

by Katherine Center

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter needs a do-over, so she signs up for a notoriously tough wilderness survival course to prove that she can make it on her own. But then she finds out her kid brother’s best friend is joining her on the trip, wrecking her plans before she even gets to the mountains. Once there, Helen confronts a summer blizzard, a group of sorority girls, rutting season for the elk, and spin-the-bottle—yet she also discovers what it really means to be brave. A fun and light read that still manages to tackle some serious topics. If you love this, go back and read The Lost Husband.

Evensong

by Gail Godwin

What happens when we get the thing we desire most in life—only to find that it might destroy us? That's the question Margaret faces at the opening of Evensong. This tale, set in the mountains of North Carolina, faithfully examines marriage and vocation and calling through the eyes of Margaret, a thirtysomething Episcopal priest, who is forced to finally confront matters when three unexpected and—let's face it—unwelcome guests arrive in her sleepy North Carolina mountain town of High Balsam. This book, first published in 1999, has the fingerprints of the millennium all over it. If you love it, go back and read its predecessor, Father Melancholy's Daughter.

Ask Again, Yes

by Mary Beth Keane

If you love dysfunctional family novels, this is one doozy of a story—and a must-read. When two rookie cops who meet at the NYC Police Academy strike up a friendship, it sets in motion a tragic chain of events that echo through the decades, through the lives of their children and their children’s children. I found this book exceptionally difficult to read—it’s depressing and dark and triggers abound—yet I was eager to find out what would happen next to these doomed families, and the astonishing developments of the last 75 pages vaulted this to my best-of-the-year list. A poignant story of grace, forgiveness, and redemption, for fans of Atonement and Little Fires Everywhere.

Clock Dance

by Anne Tyler

From the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Accidental Tourist, a family drama about the quiet joys of making a life with the people you love—whether they’re family or not. Willa is a 61-year-old woman whose track record with men isn’t great, as we see through scenes set when she’s 11, 21, 41, and finally 61. They patronize her and expect to be waited on, while Willa doesn’t stand up for what she wants. Willa doesn’t even know what she wants. But then one day the phone rings, with news that her son’s ex-girlfriend Denise has been shot in Baltimore, and Denise’s daughter—presumably Willa’s granddaughter—needs someone to look after her. It’s a misunderstanding—these people are strangers to Willa—but she travels to Baltimore to lend a hand. Willa settles in to the rhythms of the family’s life, finding herself appreciated for herself for the first time. I enjoyed this quiet novel with characters you can root for (and root against, depending).

You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

by Eleanor Roosevelt

Roosevelt penned this book--part memoir, part advice manual--in 1960, when she was 76 years old. It’s striking how fresh and wise her insight seems today, over fifty years later. Roosevelt offers an interesting perspective on history, unique insights into her life (which contained a surprising amount of personal tragedy), and a good bit of wisdom you might just apply to your own life.

The Alice Network

by Kate Quinn

It's 1947, and society girl Charlie St. Clair is desperate to find her beloved cousin Rose, who mysteriously vanished during the war. Her inquiries lead her to Eve, a cranky old woman, who Charlie soon discovers has intimate ties to the first female spy network, and who may have personal and professional reasons for tracking down Rose—and getting revenge in the process. A little bit The Nightingale, a little bit Girl in Disguise.

Never Have I Ever

by Joshilyn Jackson

Jackson’s latest Southern story feels both exactly like the books her long-time readers know and love and like a total departure—and I am here for it. Her new domestic thriller (yes, really!) begins at a book club meeting in a quiet suburban neighborhood. These women live quiet lives revolving around family and sometimes work; they know each other well, and everything unfolds as usual … until a new guest arrives, one who has a score to settle based on long-buried secrets, and who won’t rest until she makes the woman pay for her crimes. But what happened back then, and why does it matter now? I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough in my quest to discover the truth for myself. An absorbing, rewarding mystery that will delight her loyal readers and entice new fans. Publication date: July 30.

Windfall

by Jennifer E. Smith

Alice doesn't believe in luck, at least not the good kind. But when she buys her friend Teddy a lottery ticket for his 18th birthday, she picks the good ones: 31 (Teddy's birthday). 9 (the number of years they've been friends). And for the Powerball number: 13 (the date both her parents died, 13 months apart, making her an orphan). That unlucky number wins him 140 million dollars. Teddy promises her the money won't change anything, but of course it does. A novel of love, family, fate, and Chicago, and one that you could read in the course of one happy afternoon.

A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century

by Witold Rybczynski

If you’ve reached your thirties and haven’t found your calling, take heart: Olmsted found his vocation relatively late in life, becoming the world’s premier landscape architect at a time when there was no such thing. He fell into the work by happenstance, and turned out to be a genius at it. His legacy reflects his conviction that ordinary people need beautiful landscapes: he designed Central Park (remarkably, his first commission), Boston’s Back Bay Fens, the campus of Stanford University, Biltmore Estate, and many other public and private parks. Surprisingly absorbing: an outstanding account of an incredible life.

Evvie Drake Starts Over

by Linda Holmes

In the debut novel from Pop Culture Happy Hour host Holmes, a grieving widow and a disgraced Major League pitcher start over after each suffers their own kind of tragedy. Evvie’s husband dies in a car accident, but the truth surrounding his death is painful for reasons her small town community can never know. Dean’s career took a nosedive when he inexplicably developed “the yips”—he’s unable to pitch for reasons that might be all in his head, but nobody can figure it out. Because Evvie needs the income a boarder would bring, and Dean needs a refuge, a mutual friend connects the two. Out of mutual kindness and witty banter, a friendship develops, and then something more … but starting over as a grown-up is complicated. A warm, witty, and satisfying summer read.

One Plus One

by Jojo Moyes

A road-trip-from-hell as a romantic comedy? Yep. Moyes’s latest novel is a departure from her previous works, this time focusing on a single mom, her weird kids, and a geeky tech guy. Financially strapped Jess can’t afford to send her math whiz daughter to a decent school, but then a scholarship opportunity arises—in Scotland, and she can’t afford to drive there. Enter Geeky Ed, who owes her a favor, but mostly wants a chance to think about anything besides the insider trader scandal he’s embroiled in. The story is told from four different points of view, with different voices for each, which makes the audio version great. Quirky and endearing.

Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

This oddly structured page-turner from Nashvillian Ann Patchett fuses opera and a hostage crisis–and surprisingly, it works. Japanese businessman and opera buff Katsumi Hosokawa is celebrating his birthday in an unnamed South American country, in the company of diplomats, government officials, and businessman. Mr. Hosokawa has no intention of building the factory they're courting him for but he can't resist attending, because the South Americans have secured a performance by legendary soprano Roxanne Coss. The country's president is unable to attend (he's much too interested in what happens on his favorite soap opera on Tuesday nights), and his fixation spares him from being taken hostage when a militant group storms the gathering. Intriguing, highly readable, and loosely based on a true story.

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

When their mother dies, three British-born Punjabi sisters are tasked with fulfilling her dying wish: returning to Punjab to make the pilgrimage she never could. The sisters were never terribly close, and now that they’re older, don’t get along at all—but how can they refuse their mother’s last wish to scatter her ashes in her homeland? They’re all dreading the trip, but once they’re together, they find it’s not as bad as they feared, and they begin to understand one another once again. But each sister is keeping a serious secret, and it’s unclear if when revealed, those secrets will cement the sisters’ relationship, or destroy it. This novel deals in serious issues—love, sisterhood, grief, immigration—but the high zany factor keeps the mood light.

The Hazel Wood

by Melissa Albert

I loved this so much I included it in the 2018 Summer Reading Guide. Alice and her mom have spent 17 years on the run, trying to dodge the persistent bad luck mysteriously connected to an unnerving book of stories penned by Alice's estranged grandmother. When Alice's grandmother dies, her mother thinks they're free—until the day Alice comes home from school to discover Ella has been kidnapped, leaving behind a page torn from her grandmother's book and a note: Stay away from the Hazel Wood. But Alice has to save her mom, so she enters what she slowly begins to see is her grandmother's book of stories-come-to-life—and they suddenly look a lot more like horror than fantasy. This seriously twisted and sometimes bloody fairy tale reminds me of The Thirteenth Tale, with a dash of The Matrix.

Chirp

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, And The Things That Really Matter

by William Deresiewicz

Deresiewicz had zero interest in reading Jane Austen—he thought it was chick-lit, fluffy and boring. But then as a young grad student he was forced to read Emma for class, and actually reading Austen shattered his preconceptions. A Jane Austen Education is part memoir, part literary criticism: Deresiewicz reflects on the path of his own life through each of Jane Austen’s novels in turn. It works.

Dreamland Burning

by Jennifer Latham

This well-crafted YA release smoothly bridges the divide between present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma and the little-known race riots that occurred there during two terrifying days in 1921. During renovations of seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase's historic family home, a skeleton is unearthed in the backyard. The police don't care who the bones belong to, but Rowan sure does. Unbeknownst to her, this skeleton links Rowan with another teen, Will Tillman, who lived in Tulsa nearly a hundred years ago. Latham flips back and forth in time, between two teens facing their own kinds of crossroads, to give her readers a page-turning history/mystery mash-up, as her young protagonists wrestle through issues of family, friendship, identity, and belonging. I read this in an afternoon—I couldn't put it down. Publication date: February 21.

The River

by Peter Heller

I didn’t know a book could be both gorgeous and terrifying—but then I devoured this in a day. When two college friends plan a long canoeing trip in northern Canada, they anticipate a peaceful yet memorable summer escape filled with whitewater paddling, fly fishing, and campfire cooking. The first hint of danger is a whiff of smoke, from an encroaching forest fire. The next comes from a man, seemingly in shock, who reports his wife disappeared in the woods. If these boys didn’t feel compelled to do the right thing and go look for her, they’d be fine, but instead they step in to help—and are soon running for their lives, from disasters both natural and man-made. A tightly-written wilderness adventure, a lyrical mystery, and a heartrending story of friendship, rolled into one. For fans of Sebastian Junger’s Fire and Tim Johnston’s The Current.

The Café by the Sea

by Jenny Colgan

Flora was determined not to become trapped on the tiny Scottish island where she grew up, like her mother was. She fled years ago and made a life for herself in London, never looking back. Her job could be better, and she's such a cliché, hopelessly in love with her oblivious boss, but at least she got out. But then fate intervenes, and her firm's most important client needs her hometown knowledge for an important deal, so she reluctantly returns to face the family she left under terrible circumstances. A story of small town life, second chances, and family—the kind you get, and the kind you make. If you loved The Bookshop on the Corner or My Not So Perfect Life, you will LOVE this book. Publication date: June 27.

Chirp

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

by Mason Currey

The concept couldn’t be simpler: this compendium holds the daily routines of 237 writers, composers, painters, choreographers, playwrights, poets, philosophers, sculptors, filmmakers, and scientists. We glimpse the creative processes of drinkers and drug takers, early risers and exercisers, nap takers and night owls. Some schedules are mundane, others are wildly eccentric. With their contradictory routines, you’ll be assured there’s no “right” way to work. While you could read it straight through, it’s best enjoyed dipping into again and again, slowly over time. A perfect laid-back read: you don’t even need a bookmark.

001-Past Summer Reading Guides

a gateway

to reliable joy this summer

Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th