Tips for summer reading?
-from Susan
Where to start? Parenthetically, what is summer reading versus reading the rest of the year? Why is it associated with less substantial books? Maybe because summer was vacation from school and assignments? Or because you might be lying on a beach reading when a beach ball bounces on your blanket and you’re interrupted? Whatever, it seems to imply this is not the time of year to be reading War and Peace, so here are a few new and recent books I can recommend that are as enjoyable as an ice-cream cone.
Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garnus, a NYT Notable Book of 2022, showered with rave reviews. Great comic heroine in a 60s feminist dilemma turns a TV cooking show into something quite subversive.
Murder at the Jubilee Rally, by Terry Shames. You think it’s hot where you are? Try hanging around a motorcycle rally in hot, dusty Jarrett Creek Texas in the summer with a group of people who gather at these events almost as if it’s church.
Peril In Paris, by best-selling author Rhys Bowen. If by some chance you haven’t yet met Lady Georgiana Rannoch, who is somewhere far down in the line of succession to the British crown, and who cannot seem to steer clear of danger, this summer is a fine time to do so.
Smoke, by Joe Ides. If you want something tougher but exhilarating, try any of his I.Q. crime fiction entries. I’m on this one, the fourth. I.Q. is a private detective from East Long Beach California and as perilous as his misadventures are, there’s a sharp sense of humor at play.
Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. I’m reaching back to 2012 to spotlight this heartbreaking story of two extraordinarily brave young women British spies who land in Nazi-occupied France. Marketed as a YA novel, I can say it felt rich and fully adult to me. (Crying on the beach is allowed.)
And, if you still have room in your beach bag, may I humbly suggest you might add Murder Visits a French Village, the first in my series about a 30-something widow who inherits a rundown château in France and some unpleasant problems that seem to have been baked into her dream of restoration.
2 comments:
Thanks for your tips for summer reading, Susan — a very interesting list.
This is great!
I too question the entire summer reading idea, I get what it means but I like you read all the time. I remember reading the back of Cheerios boxes at breakfast. I just started Terry's Murder at the Jubilee Rally, I love her work. And was thinking about Lessons in Chemistry so thanks for growing my TBR list.
YA is another category that I read and find plenty adult in the hands of a good writer. It's all about the words.
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