Welcome to summer! Here our staff share a memorable book that they’ve recently read, and this year's collection reflects the curiosity and diverse interests of our team. We hope these recommendations lead you to a book you'll remember long after summer ends.
Each review links out to the book through Bookshop.org, which works to connect readers with independent booksellers. Happy reading!
Lorna Scribner — Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Potentially this generation's E.T., Project Hail Mary is a fantastic read. I love all of the science Andy Weir (also the author of The Martian) injects into his books.
Even though this is fiction, it feels as if it could be real. Now I hope our society is never pushed into a near-apocalyptic, dying-sun event, but it's an interesting take on how our modern world would navigate the unity needed to save the human race.
Now that the story has an incredible cinematic adaptation, it's the perfect way to escape reality twice: first by reading the book, and then by watching the movie.
Theodora Scarato — No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson by Gardiner Harris
The New York Times investigative reporter Gardiner Harris's book, No More Tears, details how Johnson and Johnson concealed decades of data regarding asbestos in its baby powder, minimized risks of liver damage from Tylenol when combined with alcohol, and much more.
Sarah Howard — Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black
Written as a letter from a dying Black father to his gay son, Daniel Black imagines what his father might have said to him before he died.
Both were raised in very different times with very different experiences and social expectations influencing their lives, their falling out, and how to find redemption.
Katherine McMahon — Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery
A kind-hearted, meditative deep dive on the often shockingly unique biology of turtles, paired with stories of the humans who dedicate their lives to rescuing and conserving them. Author Sy Montgomery's writing is especially interesting for the way she strips back our common cultural associations with these seemingly familiar animals and reveals how little most of us know about the lives of the creatures that share our backyards.
A fascinating and ultimately hopeful summer read.
Megan McLaughlin — The Crossing Places (the Ruth Galloway series) by Elly Griffiths
My perfect reading trifecta involves a little mystery, a little history, and a long-running series I can really dig into.
The Ruth Galloway mystery series by Elly Griffiths delivers on all three counts. Ruth Galloway is a forensic archaeologist at a Norfolk university who lives in an area called the Saltmarsh, a liminal landscape between land and sea, where Iron Age people lived and worshipped.
The first book in the series is called The Crossing Places, and introduces the reader to Dr. Galloway, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, and other recurring characters. The story centers on the search for a missing child and the discovery of bones that turn out to be two thousand years old. Throughout this book and others in the series, Griffiths paints a vivid picture of Norfolk's wild landscape, making the setting as compelling as the mystery itself.
Matt Kayhoe — A Resistance History of the United States by Tad Stoermer
Dating back to the 17th century through the Civil War, this explores the conversations and debates about freedom in a civil society that underlie so much of what we are wrestling with today. It is deep in analysis but based largely in story.
Chapter titles such as "Beware False Prophets" and "The Right to Refuse" lead to a summary called "The American Way of Resistance" and a "Resistance History Toolkit" appendix.
I found myself back in history and reflecting on current times throughout.
Jim Germond — Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver
I first read Barbara Kingsolver’s fictional novel Flight Behavior, shortly after it was published in late 2012. I read it, enjoyed it, and largely forgot about it until a recent trip to the El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary rekindled my interest and inspired me to reread it. This time around, I listened to it, and as an added bonus, the audiobook is narrated by the author; her Appalachian roots are well-suited to the story.
Kingsolver’s talent for populating her books with authentic, believable characters — warts and all — is on full display in this novel, principally in the person of Dellarobia Turnbull. Dellarobia, pregnant and married at seventeen, now twenty-eight with two children, feels trapped and frustrated in a marriage on the brink. Her life takes an incongruous turn when a monarch colony, displaced by a climate event, settles in a conifer forest on a mountain behind the family's Tennessee farm — a forest that Dellorabia’s father-in-law, aka “Bear,” intends to log.
A master storyteller with degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology, Barbara Kingsolver is adept at weaving environmental issues into her stories without being preachy. With the sudden appearance of untold thousands of monarchs, Bear, fearing the demise of his timber deal, responds as befits his character:
“We’re gonna spray these things and go ahead. I’ve got some DDT saved back in the basement.”
Kate Mallek — Open Season (the Joe Pickett series) by CJ Box
I enjoy reading mysteries for escape, but I am picky. I want good characters, a world I can imagine in detail, and the satisfaction of knowing that even when stories become difficult or complicated, good people get what they deserve in the end. Solutions exist and justice is possible.
The Joe Pickett series is set in Wyoming, where Joe works as a game warden. He is one of my favorite characters in fiction — decent, stubborn, underpaid, and deeply committed to doing the right thing even when it costs him.
The Wyoming landscape is vivid and specific, and the stories are deep without losing the way. There's a cast of recurring characters that has grown on me over time.
Start with Open Season, the first in the series, and read them in order.
