Summer Reading Recommendations from Library Members

We recently asked our Bookless Book Club for their best summer reading recommendations. They offered up the usual beach reads, but also touched on big books that will last you all summer, books to celebrate America’s favorite pastime (or the days when baseball really was America’s pastime), mysteries, and more.

If you’re interested in more recommendations like the ones below, join us at noon on the fourth Friday of each month for the Bookless Book Club, an open discussion for readers to talk about any and every book that’s caught their attention. You can just show up at noon on the 12th Story — the next meeting is June 24 — or, if you want to Zoom in, email Hillary for the meeting information.

Summer Reading

Songs in Ursa Major, Emma Brodie
Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid — lots of love for all her books, latest is Malibu Rising, but your mileage may vary as we also had some intense dislike
Nine Perfect Strangers, Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty
Flying Solo, Linda Holmes (brand new! Her first book, Evvie Drake Starts Over, also is excellent)
The Last Bus to Wisdom, Ivan Doig
French Braid, Anne Tyler — this is her latest; the consensus was all her books are great
On Animals, Susan Orlean — essays
Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
Trust, Hernan Diaz
The Alice Network, Kate Quinn
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simons0n
A 50-year Silence, Miranda Richmond Mouillot
The House by The Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune — YA
Joan Is Okay, Weike Wang
The Angel of History, Rabih Alameddine
Gowns by Roberta, Alice Duer Miller — from the Mercantile stacks! Duer was a golden age screenwriter
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Alice Munro — stories

Mysteries

Peril at End House, Agatha Christie
A Shot in The Dark, Lynne Truss (author of the grammar book, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves)
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
Three Hours in Paris, Cara Black
Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
Ann Cleeves mysteries
In A Lonely Place, Dorothy B. Hughes — from the Mercantile stacks!

Baseball

Calico Joe, John Grisham
Shoeless Joe, WP Kinsella
Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, Alan D. Gaff
The Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
Nine Innings, Daniel Okrent

Reading Projects:
Big books that will take you awhile

The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas
The Warden, Anthony Trollope
Far from The Madding Crowd, Hardy
Little Women, Alcott + March, Geraldine Brooks, the latter is a sort of retelling from the perspective of the father. Excellent
The March, EL Doctorow