Well-Read: Summer Reading Picks of Best-Selling Authors
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The summer reading season is rolling along and what a season it’s been! Even if you haven’t made a dent in your stack of hopefuls, great titles are just like dessert, there’s always room for more. I checked in with some of my favorite authors to see what they’re reading this summer. *Warning: reading this piece–may cause you to add titles to your list!
“This is my summer of reading - I'm spending a couple of hours each day floating round the pool with my Kindle - delicious!” from Jane Green who says she is partway through Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters and Monica Ali's Untold Story which she describes as having a fascinating premise - assuming Princess Diana wasn't killed, but staged her death in order to live anonymously in a small suburb in America. “My other favorite book this year is The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones, which sounds and looks like frivolous chick lit: do not let the cover put you off! It is, in fact, a deeply moving and clever novel, told in verse, of a middle-aged woman desperately trying to deal with her beloved daughter leaving home for college, leaving her with a husband she suddenly realises she may have nothing in common with, and a mother who
is happily hallucinating in hospital. It is a wonderful read - tears on one page, and laugh-out-loud funny on the next.” Jane’s latest novel, Promises To Keep, is now out in paperback.Alice Hoffman, whose book The Red Garden is out in paper August 2nd is rereading all of Ray Bradbury, her favorite being Something Wicked This Way Comes. A perk of being in the book world is getting to take a peak at the books before they hit the shelves. Alice is reading Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean which will be out this fall. Swim Back to Me, stories by Ann Packer is the book Hoffman just started. Hoffman's next novel, The Dovekeepers, has an early-October release date.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWith The Night Strangers due out this fall, Chris Bohjalian tells me that he just finished The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht. Chris writes “….very smart and very moving; Tea Obreht is a beautiful stylist.” He is now reading a galley of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach due out early -September. After that Chris is looking forward to reading Courtney Sullivan’s Maine.
Tom Perrotta whose eagerly awaited novel, The Leftovers, will be out end of August, lists some of his summer reads: Brooklyn by Colm Toibin; Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill; and Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill.
Perrotta’s most recent novel, The Abstinence Teacher, is on author Sandra Novack's summer list. She says, “I've been into a mix of things this summer! I've been reading Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher. I realize I probably should have gotten to this book years ago, but I am constantly behind on my reading pile. Still, as with Little Children (a book I loved), Perrotta always offers an interesting satirical look at communities, marriages, and people. He's astute and quietly pointed in his observations, all without losing that humane touch.” Sandra is also reading a big hit with the book club crowd, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a story she describes as compelling and at the intersection of science and ethics. Mixing it up, Novack-Gottshall has “been dipping into poetry” with Lynda Hull’s Collected Poems, which she calls “gorgeous.” Sandra’s new book, Everyone But You: Stories, will be out mid-September.
A book that’s been on many summer reading lists, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, is one that Jodi Picoult just finished. Next up for Jodi, Tom Perrotta’s latest, The Leftovers. Picoult’s most recent novel, Sing Me Home, which comes complete with soundtrack, continues to be a crowd-pleaser.
Caroline Leavitt shares “I'm loving Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin. She transports you into this whole other era of circuses, P. T. Barnum, and of course, the 2 ft. 8 inches tall Lavinia Bump. Speaking of other eras, Daisy Buchanan's Daughter by Tom Carson just arrived and because I am a Fitzgerald (both Zelda and Scott) aficionado and because The Great Gatsby is my favorite novel, I can't wait to read this. It promises to be a dazzler.” Leavitt’s latest, Pictures of You, is out in paper.
Local author Ann Hood says she’s been “doing a lot of reading these days! To satisfy my curiosity about language and words, I’m reading How To Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish. To satisfy my love for Swedish mysteries, I’m reading The Snowman by Jo Nesbo and my literary side is reading Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner.”
For a different take, Claire Cook reports: “Like the almost empty-nester heroine in my latest novel, Best Staged Plans, I'm trying to weed through decades of accumulated stuff in order to downsize. So my summer reading has been a stroll down memory lane. I've started re-reading the beloved Nancy Drew mysteries of my childhood, and even skimmed through my daughter's Babysitters Club and son's Goosebumps collections… It doesn't matter what it is - the point is that when reading is fun, you read. And when you read a lot, you start picking up speed and raise the bar - and before you know it you're a lifetime bookaholic.”
I am currently reading Game of Secrets by local author, Dawn Tripp, and I am thoroughly enjoying the “game!”
Reading enthusiast and all around "book-pusher" Robin Kall can be heard live Saturday mornings from 7-8am on Reading With Robin WHJJ 920AM. This week, author Dawn Tripp (Game of Secrets) will be her guest. Also streaming live at www.920whjj.com. Follow on Twitter @robinkall, and Facebook - Reading With Robin.
Photo: Jozlin09
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