Quick Lit July 2025 Archives

Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall

by Helena Merriman

This narrative nonfiction reads like a real life historical thriller, detailing how 29 people escaped from East Berlin to freedom in the West by tunneling under the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold War in 1962. I was stunned by how much I didn't know about German and local history, and utterly shocked to discover this escape was not only filmed but funded by the U.S. news outlet NBC. Merriman relied on interviews with survivors and Stasi documents to bring this true story to life.

The Last Flight

by Julie Clark

In this absorbing 2020 thriller, two women on opposite coasts are both trying to escape desperate, dangerous men—and do so by switching IDs at JFK airport just before their respective flights. (As one of the women recounts early in the novel, "The only way to get a fake ID is to find someone who’s willing to give you theirs.") I raced through this, enjoying both the plotty ride and the more nuanced musings on identity explored in these pages. Because of how Clark employs voice and perspective in this story, this thriller would be more fun than most to unpack with book club pals.

Heft

by Liz Moore

I picked up this 2012 release because I've come to love Liz Moore's work and am toying with the idea of becoming a completist. It's been on my TBR list for many years, yet the uncomfortable descriptions of one protagonist's fatness almost led me to put down the book in the opening pages. (I appreciated this interview with Moore, in which she puts words to her own discomfort at how these descriptions were written, and what she would do differently were she to write this book today.) I'm glad I stuck with it, because I was quickly swept up in the story of three lonely and struggling characters who seem to have nothing in common, but who are brought together by fate and circumstance to maybe, hopefully become a family to one another. The title of the book refers to many things: addiction, compulsive behaviors, the burdens we carry, and the near-impossible weight of the burdens placed on us by our parents. But who might help us deal with these hardships, and carry these burdens? That is the question Heft seeks to answer.

Quick Lit July 2025

Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall

The Last Flight

Heft

Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th