The weather is warm and many people are taking to the beach and skipping out early on Friday. It’s prime summer reading season.
Have you read anything good lately? Care to share with the rest of us?
Here are some of my recent favorites:
- A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
- The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
- Black Swan Rising by Lisa Brackmann
- The Quiet American by Graham Greene
What about you?
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To Wake a Sleeping Child by A. Shepherd
https://www.andersonpublishingcompany.com/p/to-wake-sleeping-child-by-shepherd.html
This one was just published yesterday:
When We Landed on the Moon: A Memoir
https://www.dvorkin.com/moonland/
It’s a short memoir about my years at NASA in Houston, working on Apollo.
Rekommended book: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Vernes. A classic that still is very, very exciting!
Of Mice and Men, a little gem by John Steinbeck, has always been one of my favorites.
I really enjoyed Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, just out earlier this month.
I recently read a couple of books that I thought were great for creatives:
The Passion Paradox by Brad Stullberg and Steve Magness
Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff
And I love, love, LOVE The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Gemeinhart.
Just from what I’ve read recently:
MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite – dark comedy/neo-noir set in Lagos, Nigeria. Kind of a reverse So I Married an Axe Murderer.
GILDED WOLVES by Roshani Chokshi – YA historic fantasy/heist novel set in Gilded Age Paris in which a group of outcasts attempt to steal a magical artifact at the behest of a secret society.
MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL by Adam Higgenbotham – you’ve seen the show, read the book!
EVENTOWN by Corey Ann Haydu – twin girls move to a too-perfect town with a dark secret after a family tragedy; middle grade mystery.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
If you like YA fantasy the Spinning Silver or Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Uprooted has just been signed by Warners, so watch your cinemas)
If you like thrillers then there’s Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris or The Good Daughter by Karen Slaughter
And if you just want an emotional journey then Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton
Oh man, soooo many!!!!
First, there are the big bestsellers, which if you haven’t read I highly recommend:
The Book Thief
The Rosie Project
Gone Girl
Vicious
Big Little Lies
Where’d you go Bernadette
Sadie
Red Rising Trilogy (if you’re into wild space operas)
Bad Blood (the true story of Elizabeth Holmes that reads like a thriller)
A Gentleman in Moscow (I’m halfway through and adoring it)
I second the person above who recommended Spinning Silver, it’s mind-blowing.
Then for the less well-known ones:
Lab Girl (a GORGEOUSLY written memoir)
The Ten Thousand Doors of January (a stunning debut portal fantasy that’s just incredible, easily one of my top 5 speculative reads ever)
A Life in Parts (A surprisingly good celebrity memoir that I found inspirational as an artist)
When Breath Becomes Air (the crushingly beautiful story of a surgeon dealing with his own death)
Lonesome Dove (It’s kind of problematic for the modern reader, but at it’s core it’s a story about journeys and longing and what people will do chasing a dream. Also a good glimpse into what the Wild West really looked like)
And my single biggest recommendation:
The Denial of Death – A nonfiction Pulitzer winner from the 70’s that, I am not exaggerating, will utterly change your life and how you view human psychology. Not only was this book critical in my understanding of characters and the motivations of people, it fundamentally altered my understanding of the world and myself. Pretty dense, but worth struggling through. (This one comes with a “read at your own risk” warning)
Happy Reading 😀
I’m now adding The Denial of Death to my to reads list. Sounds amazing!
I just remembered, about the Denial of Death, that there’s a chapter toward the end on homosexuality/sexuality that’s pretty offensive and old-fashioned in the psychological sense. So I wanted to add another “risk” qualifier to that book. It’s still incredibly useful overall, just ignore that one chapter’s antiquated ideas. It is, like Lonesome Dove, a product of it’s time.
Recent-ish mind blowing YA reads were Sadie by Courtney Summers and The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Also, I’m currently rereading An Abundance of Katherines and it just reaffirms how much I love John Green and how he sees the world.
I read The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons because horror fan Nicole Cliffe recommended, and boy is it chilling. Another chiller (?) is Ill Will by Dan Chaon.
Always excited to recommend The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. I’m obsessed with it. But I like weird.
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa