Summer Reading 2013

Now that Memorial Day is behind us we're gearing up for the summer.  Many of our summer residents have returned, and we're starting to see an increase in the number of items checked out each day.  

Our Book Discussion groups are also preparing for summer.  For the second year now, our May meetings focus on Reader's Choice.  Instead of the group reading one specific book, members are invited to come to the meeting with a list of 2 or 3 books that they've recently (or not so recently) read, and share them with the group.  At the end of the meeting I compile a list of the books they've suggested and send them out to the entire group.  This gives us all a list of books that we may want to read over the summer.

Both the afternoon and evening groups gave such wonderful suggestions that I thought I'd pass them on so that everyone has a list of some really great books to read this summer. So here are the books your friends and neighbors here in Wells are recommending this summer:

Emily Arsenault – The Broken Teaglass
Julian Barnes – The Sense of an Ending
Chris Bohjalian –The Sandcastle Girls
Pearl Buck – The Good Earth
Anita Diament – The Red Tent
David Ebershoff – The 19th Wife
Lisa Genova – Still Alive, Left Neglected, Love Anthony
Drew Gilpin Faust – This Republic of Suffering
Gillian Flynn – Gone Girl
Tana French – Broken Harbor
Shilpi Somaya Gowda – Secret Daughter
Kathleen Grissom – The Kitchen House
Mark Helprin – A Soldier of the Great War
Janis Ian – Society’s Child
John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
Peter Janney – Mary’s Mosaic
Rachel Joyce – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Franz Kafka – Metamorphosis, The Trial
Philip Kerr – A Quiet Flame
Laurie King – The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (2 suggested this)

Anne Lamott – Some Assembly Required
David Lis – Conspiracy of Paper, Coffee Traitor, Ethical Assassin
Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall; An Experiment in Love; A Place of Greater Safety
Kimberly McCreight – Reconstructing Amelia
K.D. McCrite – In Front of God and Everybody
Jennifer McVeigh – The Fever Tree

Debra Mogash – Tulip Fever
Erin Morgenstern – Night Circus
Edward Kelsey Moore – The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can Eat

Kate Morton – The Forgotten Garden

Jojo Moyers – Me Before You
Sena Jeter Naslund – Ahab’s Wife

Bill O’Reilly – The Killing of Lincoln
Marge Piercy – Gone to Soldiers
Annie Proulx – The Shipping News
Alyson Richman – The Lost Wife 
(also a related children's story by Patricia Polacco – Christmas Tapestry)
Ransom Riggs – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Tom Robbins – Jitterbug Perfume
Gretchen Rubin – The Happiness Project, Happier at Home
B.A. Shapiro – The Art Forger
Kieran Shields – The Truth of All Things
W. Cleon Skousen – The 5000 Year Leap, The First 2000 Years
M.L. Stedman – The Light Between Oceans

Elizabeth Strout – The Burgess Boys

Paul Theroux – The Grand Railway Bizarre
Abraham Verghese – Cutting for Stone
Susan Vreeland – Clara and Mr. Tiffany
Jess Walter – Beautiful Ruins
Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger
Ben Ames Williams – Come Spring

Jennifer Worth – Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times

Also the novels of Barbara Pym 

Also Scandinavian Mystery writers – Jo Nesbo, Haakan Nessor

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments section - I'll add them to the list.