Curl up with a great book…pool-side!

Camp out with a great book…fire-side!

Chill out with a great book…AC-side!

Your Public Library has many books that are on all the hot summer reads lists. Read on for some great suggestions…

For those that love fiction:

Canada by Richard Ford.

“First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.”

When fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons’ parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

Taken from her native Iceland to Scotland in the early 1950s when her widower father drowns at sea, young Gemma Hardy comes to live with her kindly uncle and his family. But his death leaves Gemma under the care of her resentful aunt, and she suddenly finds herself an unwelcome guest. Surviving oppressive years at a strict private school, Gemma ultimately finds a job as an au pair to the eight-year-old niece of Mr. Sinclair on the Orkney Islands—and here, at the mysterious and remote Blackbird Hall, Gemma’s greatest trial begins.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

At Westish College, the baseball star Henry Skrimshander flourishes until one of his throws goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of the error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry finds himself mired in self-doubt, his life’s purpose called into question. Guert Affenlight, the college’s president, has fallen helplessly in love. Mike Schwartz, the student-coach, realizes he has guided Henry’s career at the expense of his own. Owen Dunne, Henry’s gay roommate, is caught in his own drama of unexpected love. And Pella Affenlight, the president’s daughter, has returned to Westish after an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climax, these five confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. Written with an almost superhuman affection and insight into character and emotion, THE ART OF FIELDING is a tender depiction of young people finding their paths and a riveting exploration of ambition, family, and love.

Home by Toni Morrison

America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.
Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again.
A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood—and his home.

In One Person by John Irving

His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

A story of unfulfilled love—dark and tormented, but affecting. This tender exploration of nascent desire, of love and loss, manages to be sweeping, brilliant, political, provocative, tragic, and funny—it is precisely the kind of astonishing alchemy we associate with a John Irving novel.

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

It’s June 15th, the night of Nantucket High School graduation. Four juniors are driving home from a party when something goes horribly wrong and there is a crash. The driver of the car, Penny Alistair, is killed, and her twin brother, Hobby Alistair, is left in a coma. Penny’s boyfriend, Jake Randolph, and Penny’s friend Demeter Castle are unhurt–but suffer tremendous emotional damage. Jake and his family move to the other side of the globe–to the west coast of Australia–in order to escape the horrors of the accident. Demeter falls prey to alcohol abuse and other self-destructive behaviors that nearly lead to her destroying her own life. SUMMERLAND delves into the circumstances surrounding this accident, the roots of which lie deep in the past, with the first interactions between these four friends and their parents. It’s a novel about how tragedy affects individuals, families, and the island community as a whole, and how healing can happen, in even the most devastating circumstances.

 

For those that love non-fiction/Biography & Memoir/History.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The first selection in Oprah’s revived Book Club 2.0.
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage destroyed. Cheryl Strayed made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs

Having sanctified himself in The Year of Living Biblically and sharpened his mind in The Know-It-All, A. J. Jacobs had one feat left in the self-improvement trinity: to become the healthiest man in the world. He didn’t want just to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far, far greater: Maximal health from head to toe. The task was massive. He had to tackle a complicated web of diet and exercise advice, much of which was nonsensical, unproven, and contradictory. He had to consult a team of medical advisers. And he had to subject himself to a grueling regimen of exercises, a range of diets, and an array of practices to improve everything from his hearing to his sleep to his sex life—all the while testing the patience of his long-suffering wife. Drop Dead Healthy teems with hilarity and warmth. The story of his transformation is not only brilliantly entertaining, but it just may be the healthiest book ever written. It will make you laugh until your sides split and endorphins flood your bloodstream.

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen

“It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again.”

In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.

 

Fenway Park: A Salute to the Coolest, Cruelest, Longest-Running Major League Baseball Stadium in America by John Powers and Ron Driscoll

Since it opened in 1912, Fenway Park has become an iconic destination for baseball fans everywhere and a source of great civic pride for generations of New Englanders. Home to the Boston Red Sox–as well as many important non-baseball events over the decades–it is consistently among the most visited and toured stadiums in the country.

For those that love romance/romantic suspense:

Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner

The book tells the story of four women and a baby: India Croft, who’s struggled with infertility and a secret past; Jules Strauss, an Ivy League student who sells her eggs to help her father, Annie Barrow, who goes to work as a gestational surrogate to help her working-class family and give her young sons a better life, and Bettina Croft, India’s twenty-something stepdaughter, who’s got deep suspicions about her new stepmother.

Love is Murder by Sandra Brown.

Edited by bestselling writer Sandra Brown, Love is Murder is a heart-racing original collection by thirty of the hottest bestselling authors and new voices writing romance suspense today. Go on vacation with Allison Brennan’s Lucy Kincaid, where she saves a man from drowning, only to discover he is in far greater danger on land. Meet Roxanne St. Claire’s “bullet catcher”—bodyguard Donovan Rush—who may have met his match in the sexually charged “Diamond Drop.” Debut author William Simon shows us what happens when the granddaughter of the president of the United States is kidnapped. And Lee Child’s pitch-perfect “I Heard a Romantic Story” puts a whole new spin on Love Is Murder. Bodyguards, vigilantes, stalkers, serial killers, women (and men!) in jeopardy, cops, thieves, P.I.s, killers—these all-new stories will keep you thrilled and chilled late into the night.

The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts

Owen Montgomery and Avery MacTavish have been best friends forever.  The organizer of the Montgomery clan, Owen runs the family’s construction business with an iron will and an inflexible spreadsheet.  His brothers might tease Owen about his compulsive list-making, but everyone knows he played a key role in seeing Inn BoonsBoro opened right on schedule.

From her popular pizzeria right across the street from the inn, Avery MacTavish boasted a front row seat to its amazing renovation—and she found a new appreciation for Owen.  She considers Owen her first boyfriend, due to a childhood crush, and a bubblegum ring.  But she can’t claim the attraction she feels for him now as child-like or innocent.

As Avery and Owen cautiously take their relationship to another level, the opening of the inn gives the whole town of Boonsboro a reason to celebrate.  But Owen’s hard work has only begun. Getting her to let down her guard may take longer than he expected—as will convincing Avery her first boyfriend is going to be her last

For those that love Thriller/Mysteries:

The 500 by Matthew Quirk

“A thundering David-and-Goliath tale of corruption…This is a real page turner, with high stakes action that doesn’t stop. Expect this to be one of the season’s most talked-about debut thrillers” Booklist (Starred Review)

Mike Ford is a former con artist who’s been plucked from his Harvard Law School classroom to be an associate at The Davies Group, Washington’s most high-powered and well-respected strategic consulting firm. Their specialty: pulling strings and peddling influence for the five hundred most powerful people inside the Beltway, the men and women who really run Washington — and by extension the country, and the world. Quickly pulled into a seductive, dangerous web of power and corruption, Mike struggles to find his way out. But how do you save your soul when you’ve made a deal with the devil?

The Last Man by P. T. Deutermann

A woman goes missing, sending a young nuclear engineer on a quest deep into the Judean desert to the legendary fortress of Masada, where secrets are concealed. When a young Israeli woman suddenly goes missing, her boyfriend, an American nuclear engineer, suspects her disappearance is connected to her tantalizing theory about the haunting fortress of Masada. He decides to travel to Herod’s 2000 year old mountain fortress to see if her theory was right. There, he makes a discovery so astonishing that forces from the dark side of Israeli intelligence begin to converge on him to deflect his pursuit of the truth by any means necessary. With the aid of a beautiful Israeli archaeologist, he struggles to bring to light the treasures he believes are concealed in the mountain, unaware that there is a dangerous contemporary secret at stake.

Started Early Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Tracy Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective-a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other-or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly. Suddenly burdened with a small child, Tracy soon learns her parental inexperience is actually the least of her problems, as much larger ones loom for her and her young charge.

Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie, the beloved detective of novels such as Case Histories, is embarking on a different sort of rescue-that of an abused dog. Dog in tow, Jackson is about to learn, along with Tracy, that no good deed goes unpunished.

The Rope by Nevada Barr

Anna Pigeon’s first case—this is the story her fans have been clamoring for…this is where it all starts.

In The Rope, the latest in Nevada Barr’s bestselling novels featuring Anna Pigeon, Nevada Barr gathers together the many strings of Anna’s past and finally reveals the story that her many fans have been long asking for. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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