As summer approaches and temperatures rise, the days stretch into evening and the bibliophile's heart turns to thoughts of what to read next. I've compiled a list of ten books I'm excited about this summer, and I think they'll be perfect whether your reading spot of choice is a sunny beach or a cozy couch.
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Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Set in a high-pressure performing arts high school in the '80s, two students, David and Sarah, fall in love. But it's not as simple as that. This sounds exciting and like there will be a lot to chew over. Book clubs take note.Publisher's blurb
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
This finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction sounds amazing. Amy Poehler already snapped up the option for TV.Publisher's blurb
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish,
the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.
Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
The author of Eat, Pray, Love is back with a highly anticipated work of fiction. It's described as a "delicious novel of glamour, sex and adventure" on Amazon. Oh my, I do believe I'm all in on that one.Publisher's blurb
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This book about rock 'n' roll, romance and longing will take you back to any documentary or book about a band you love, and call to mind that perfect concert you'll never forget. It's told as an oral history, tracking the rise of an iconic '70s band and uncovering the truth behind their split. I reviewed Daisy Jones & The Six in May, and it's too good to leave off this list.Publisher's blurb
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
This made the list of one of the year's most anticipated books in several publications. It's been described as Bridget Jones's Diary meets Americanah, and if that doesn't whet your appetite, I don't know what will. Oh, wait, how about a word from the publisher?Publisher's blurb
Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.
As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
Gottlieb is a psychotherapist, New York Times bestselling author, and writes the weekly Dear Therapist column for The Atlantic. It delves into what therapy is like from the position of both the patient and the analyst, and sounds engrossing.Publisher's blurb
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives ... she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung
This soon-to-be released novel is already claiming rave reviews from those lucky enough to snag an advance copy on Goodreads. The tale follows a mathematician who, while trying to solve a mathematical problem, discovers secrets about her family's own history and its roots in World War II.Publisher's blurb
From the days of her childhood in the 1950s Midwest, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem. As she matures from a girl of rare intelligence into an exceptional mathematician, traveling to Europe to further her studies, she must face the most human of problems—who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of ambition? These questions grow ever more entangled as Katherine strives to take her place in the world of higher mathematics and becomes involved with a brilliant and charismatic professor.
When she embarks on a quest to conquer the Riemann hypothesis, the greatest unsolved mathematical problem of her time, she turns to a theorem with a mysterious history that may hold both the lock and the key to her identity, and to secrets long buried during World War II. Forced to confront some of the most consequential events of the twentieth century and rethink everything she knows of herself, she finds kinship in the stories of the women who came before her, and discovers how seemingly distant stories, lives, and ideas are inextricably linked to her own.
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
This book presents a fascinating look at the Troubles in Northern Ireland, investigated with the 1972 disappearance of a mother of ten in Belfast as the starting point that spreads out to encompass a larger picture of the times. If you enjoy the book (I definitely did!), you may want to follow up with the documentary I, Dolours (currently available on Hulu for subscribers). It focuses on Dolours Price, who features heavily in Say Nothing.Publisher's blurb
In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville’s children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress – with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Moriarty comes through again with her latest book! And just like her blockbuster Big Little Lies (which was a huge hit as an HBO adaptation), Nine Perfect Strangers is coming to your screens as well, this time on Hulu. I wrote about it last month.Publisher's blurb
Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.
Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer – or should she run while she still can?
It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.
The Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory
This one comes out July 16. It's the third in a series, but reviewers on Goodreads say it can stand alone. If you're looking for something fun with romance, this should hit the spot.
Publisher's blurb
Maddie and Theo have two things in common:
1. Alexa is their best friend
2. They hate each other
After an “oops, we made a mistake” night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa’s wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they’re comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won’t fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn’t looking, agreeing they would end it once the wedding is over. When it’s suddenly pushed up and they only have a few months left of secret rendezvouses, they find themselves regretting that the end is near. Two people this different can’t possibly have a connection other than the purely physical, right?
But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First and foremost, don’t fall in love.
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