6 Must-Read Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List
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Ah, summer. When I was a kid, I used to spend long periods of time stretched out in the air conditioning, reading. The lazy, unencumbered hours would pass by as I got lost in some other world. As a working mom, I don’t enjoy those marathon reading stretches anymore, but with family trips and more daylight hours, I do find that I am able to spend more time reading over the summer than during the year.
Now, my ideal summer read is a meaty, suspenseful drama about families, friendships, or parenting, or maybe some good historical fiction or a memoir. A number of new books have caught my eye and made their way onto my summer to-read list. (Note: I don’t do vampires, mysteries, thrillers, sci-fi, or dystopia – if you are into those genres, then this list probably isn’t for you. ) If you’re looking for something similar this summer (and you don’t mind depressing or weighty), you might enjoy these picks as well.
Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
Three generations of women from the Kelleher family spend a final season at the family summer house in Maine. Long-held secrets and passions are revealed as the (dysfunctional) ties that bind these women are tested and strengthened.
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
The children of the Erickson family deal with their complicated relationship with their rural Iowa hometown over the course of 30 years.
Faith by Jennifer Haigh (author of The Condition and Mrs. Kimble)
What happens to a tight-knit Boston family when one of its own, a Catholic priest, is accused of sexual abuse? Faith explores the crisis from the differing points of view of the members of the McGann family.
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
A pharmaceutical researcher is forced to travel to the Amazon jungle to find the remains of a colleague who died under mysterious circumstances. While there, she confronts her own regrets and issues, as well as the region’s physically challenging conditions. Reviews of State of Wonder say that Patchett has bested her own masterpiece Bel Canto.
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Alice, a 39 year-old mother of three, takes a spill at the gym and wakes up thinking that it’s ten years earlier. As she slowly gets her memory back, she tries to reconstruct the last ten years of her life, pinpointing when it –and she – changed into something she neither recognizes nor desires.
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
A bigamist’s daughters are born four months apart and ultimately meet and become friends. Despite sharing a father, their material and emotional situations are very different, as their distinct coming-of-age stories attest.
Photo: iStockPhoto/ThinkStock
