Summer Reading

Summer is here, and what a great time for reading! Schedules are slower for many, which provides additional free time and allows for more books. I believe summer reading should not be limited to any particular genre – if it sounds good to you, read it! More important than the genre is an engaging plot, solid prose, and whether the story appeals to the reader. I polled Buzz residents about their recommendations for books to pick up this summer and was happy to see a wide range of suggestions. Additionally, I include some selections of my own at the end. 

Kelly Hogan: “How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin is a great summer read! It is a light British whodunnit that is similar to a fun Agatha Christie-style novel. The book toggles back and forth between present day and the past of the main character (who is also the murder victim) leading up to the crime. It is so easy to read or fun to listen to since the narrators offer accents. It is also a great choice for a fun summer book club complete with high tea and a second in the series to follow up with.” 

Catherine Gentry: “This summer I’ve got a very long list! I just finished Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life, about two writers vying for the opportunity to write the biography of an 80-year-old heiress and former tabloid princess and of course, falling in love along the way. I also loved The Wedding People by Alison Espach. It’s funny and poignant and a tender portrayal of love gone wrong filled with quirky characters, wedding guests at someone else’s wedding, who help a brokenhearted woman find love again.” 

Sally Mason: “I just finished reading How To Read A Book by Monica Wood and loved it! It is about complex family dynamics, redemption, forgiveness, and starting over. (A retired English teacher leads a book club in a woman’s prison.) The character development is fabulous! How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley is a feel-good novel about friendship, aging, and the importance of social connection. A group of London senior citizens (all with different personalities) become allies when their community center is threatened with closure. It is funny, frank, and brings up real challenges for older folk! The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff is a family saga about a Texas family and four generations dealing with losses and surprises of inheritance. Her character development is fabulous. When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow portrays the golden age of department stores and the visionary women who led them. You get a feel for what life was like then and a sense of loss for our times now when everything seems to be moving to online shopping. The Briar Club by Kate Quinn is a historical mystery set in a boarding house in Washington, D.C. during the ’50s. It focuses on a group of women and their friendship, loyalty, and secrets during the McCarthy era. Captivating as all her books are!” 

Ann Strang: “All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall is being compared to the sci-fi classics Station Eleven and The Road. A cataclysmic storm has driven the protagonist and her family from living on the roof of the American Museum of Natural Science, where they have protected its exhibits, to pursue a life anew while honoring all that they have rescued. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (author of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves). A family lives on an island near Antarctica that is home to the largest seed banks in the surviving world. During a monstrous storm, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. What choices will the family make to protect the seed banks and to protect their secrets. Who is the mystery woman?”

Celia Anderson: “A great series of mysteries is the Cormoran Strike series. Strike is a down-and-out detective in contemporary London. An ex-child of a superstar rocker, ex-military specialist who lost part of a leg, and an ex-boyfriend of super models, he starts a detective agency. Along comes a beautiful, sweet temp to help him pull it together. Seven books are already out and the eighth one comes out in September. Can’t wait! The author of these books is Robert Galbraith aka J. K. Rowling. The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an absorbing book that takes you through 20th-century Vietnam history. The story is told with beautiful, stirring language through the lens of a North Vietnamese grandmother and granddaughter. The strong love and loyalty for family is front and center.”

Paige Erwin: “I just read James by Percival Everett and loved it! It is Mark Twain’s story of Huckleberry Finn told from Jim’s perspective. Such a great story of resilience and perseverance told in the style of Twain. A real page turner! One of my friends read James and Huckleberry Finn simultaneously and found it quite easy to do. After reading James, my husband reread Tom Sawyer and then Huckleberry Finn.”

Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh explores the Korean American immigrant experience from several perspectives in this engaging and entertaining tale. (Photo: Cindy Burnett)

Jay Hachen: “I just read In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt. It is a beautiful but heart-wrenching story set in Rwanda around genocide in the late 1990s. The book addresses how people can cope with the worst humanity has to offer, while showing love and forgiveness.”

Here are some books that I have read recently and loved, and think will make great reads this summer:

Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh (fiction) – Junior partner Jia Song has worked hard her entire life hoping to find success and security. When she is asked to manage a crisis for her firm’s biggest client, a Korean family worth billions of dollars, she finds herself thrown into a world of extreme extravagance. What results is an appealing romp across the world with a dysfunctional family whose fortunes are mind-boggling. Ahdieh deftly contrasts the two Korean American experiences while providing commentary on what happens when a long sought-after goal may no longer be desired. I loved this one. 

We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry (mystery) – We Don't Talk About Carol is a deeply haunting, twisty mystery based on a 60-year-old cold case involving six missing Black women whose stories were forgotten by the world but never by their families. Berry expertly explores the themes of family secrets, community, trauma, and motherhood while unraveling a mystery that has some fabulous twists and turns. She also highlights the racial disparities that occur in missing person investigations, which made for tough but compelling reading. 

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild is an engrossing debut that will surprise readers. (Photo: Cindy Burnett)

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild (fiction) – Honor seems to have everything. She adores her daughter Chloe and her husband Tom. But her longing for another baby threatens to eclipse it all until a shocking event changes their lives forever. My recommendation is to go in blind on this one. The story is so unique – the events, the narrator, and the way it all unfolds. I felt like I was watching an impending train wreck with no way to stop it, and I could not put the book down until I had finished it. 

Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje (fiction) – Spanning 20 years in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is a love story as well as a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself. Ivona has experienced so much loss and struggles to come to term with her current life. Hilje chronicles her attempts to move forward against the backdrop of Croatia’s culture and food. Croatia is a stunningly beautiful country that comes alive on the pages of this debut, and the prose is so graceful and lyrical. 

Songs of Summer by Jane L. Rosen (fiction) – 30-year-old record shop owner Maggie Mae Wheeler books a trip to Fire Island to crash the season’s biggest wedding in search of her biological mother. But along the way, she also happens to find some small-town drama, an identity crisis, and even some romance of her own. The small-town vibes, island setting, and frequent music references made this such a fun read. While this one ties in with Rosen’s other Fire Island books, it is a standalone and reads like one. 

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick (historical fiction) – Four dissatisfied ’60s-era housewives form a book club that will hold fast amid the turmoil of a rapidly changing world and eventually alter the course of each of their lives. When they read The Feminine Mystique, the group finds themselves considering the status (or lack thereof) of women in the 1960s. In this engrossing tale, Bostwick demonstrates that books open up new worlds for people, start conversations, transport readers, and enable the power of human connection and friendship. 

The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’ Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda by Nathalia Holt (nonfiction) – For lovers of history, nature, and adventure, The Beast in the Clouds is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s sons and their 1920s Himalayan expedition to prove the existence of the panda bear to the western world. After the success of the brothers’ expedition, the panda bear sadly became the focus of Western hunters, but their discovery also led to a new era of animal conservation and began to change the way scientists studied mammals. The book contains some fabulous photos of their journey.

Hunger Like a Thirst by Besha Rodell (memoir) – Traveling around the world, Rodell takes us on a delicious, raw, and fascinating journey through her life and career as a restaurant critic and explores the history of criticism and dining and the cultural shifts that have turned us all into food obsessives. Her career coincides with the rise of bloggers and subsequently influencers who really changed the way restaurants were reviewed, and I found that fascinating and very similar to the shift that happened in the book world. I listened to this one, and her Australian accent was an added bonus. 

Happy summer! Enjoy the slower schedule and escaping the heat in whatever manner you can. I would love to hear about the fabulous reads you enjoyed.

Editor’s note: Book reviewer Cindy Burnett also writes our weekly Page Turners column. She hosts an award-winning book podcast entitled Thoughts from a Page Podcast www.thoughtsfromapage.com, runs the Instagram account @thoughtsfrompage, and regularly speaks to groups about books.