Summer Reading

Whether you enjoy novels or novellas, fiction or nonfiction, our Summer Reading Collection has you covered. This selection features buzzworthy picks from seasoned editors, so sit back, relax, and soak in some reading fun with a hot Collection that includes Emily Henry, Elin Hilderbrand, and Elizabeth Gilbert.

Publication year 2020

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Family, Guilt, Death

Tags Historical Fiction, Romance, Food, Relationships, Politics & Government, Love & Sexuality, American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction

Publication year 1929

Genre Novel, Fiction

Tags The Lost Generation, Modernism, American Literature, Military & War, World History, Historical Fiction, Romance, Classic Fiction

A Farewell to Arms, written by Ernest Hemingway and published in 1929, is the story of Frederic Henry, an officer with the Italian army in World War I, and his relationship with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. Some have noted the similarities between the main character and Hemingway, who also served in the Italian army as an ambulance driver in 1918, and his nurse, Agnes Von Kurowsky, who cared for Hemingway after he was wounded.The... Read A Farewell to Arms Summary

Publication year 2014

Genre Novel, Fiction

Tags Historical Fiction, Disability, European History

All the Light We Cannot See is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Anthony Doerr published in 2014. This historical fiction novel alternates between the lives of its two central characters: Marie-Laure Leblanc, a girl who grows up in Paris and loses her eyesight to cataracts at age six, and Werner Pfennig, a boy from a German mining town who joins the Nazi military to escape working in the mines.In August 1944, Marie-Laure and Werner are... Read All the Light We Cannot See Summary

Publication year 2019

Genre Novel, Fiction

Tags Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction, Romance

City of Girls is the third novel by author Elizabeth Gilbert, published in 2019. Gilbert is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include Stern Men (2000) and The Signature of All Things (2013). A noted writer of nonfiction, she has also written a biography entitled The Last American Man (2002), as well as several memoirs including Eat Pray Love (2006), Committed (2010), and Big Magic (2015). Eat Pray Love became a worldwide bestseller... Read City of Girls Summary

Publication year 2017

Genre Novel, Fiction

Tags Modern Classic Fiction, Romance, Mental Illness

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a 2017 comic novel about human connection. The title character, Eleanor Oliphant, narrates the story, introducing herself as an office worker with a solitary life in present-day Glasgow, Scotland. Eleanor spends her free time doing crosswords, listening to the radio, drinking vodka, and reading classic literature. She does not socialize with anyone, and her only family is a spiteful mother who calls from prison once a week. One night... Read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Summary

Publication year 2021

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Grief, Appearance & Reality, Community

Tags Mystery & Crime Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Trauma & Abuse, Addiction & Substance Abuse, Grief & Death, Race & Racism, American Literature, Horror & Suspense, Modern Classic Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

Publication year 1989

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Family, Fate

Tags American Literature, Science Fiction, Horror & Suspense, Modern Classic Fiction, Fantasy

Geek Love is a 1989 dystopian novel by Katherine Dunn. The novel is structured as a memoir written by Olympia “Oly” Binewski, an albino hunchback dwarf, as she chronicles the bizarre story of her family of carnival freaks. Her parents, Aloysius “Al” and Lillian “Lil, Lily, or Crystal Lil” Binewski, had sought to prop up their faltering traveling carnival by breeding their own children into freaks through the prenatal use of illicit drugs, poison, and radiation. The family believes that “norms,”... Read Geek Love Summary

Publication year 2012

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Good & Evil

Tags Horror & Suspense, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Modern Classic Fiction

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is a psychological thriller: a tale of a marriage gone cold and a sociopath who will stop at nothing to get revenge. Echoing the domestic noir genre, Flynn takes that genre one step further by incorporating several plot twists that subvert the reader’s expectations. Chief among the subverted expectations is the reader’s ability to trust the narrator. The novel consists of alternating chapters: one told by husband, Nick, and the... Read Gone Girl Summary

Publication year 2018

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Religion & Spirituality, Truth & Lies, Loyalty & Betrayal, War, Siblings, Place, Race, Fear, Emotions/Behavior: Courage, Guilt

Tags Historical Fiction, Action & Adventure, Coming of Age, World War II, Military & War, Grief & Death, Trauma & Abuse, Asian History, US History, Religion & Spirituality, Children`s Literature, World History

Publication year 2021

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Family, Immigration, Religion & Spirituality

Tags Realistic Fiction, Mythology, Immigration & Refugeeism, Social Justice, Politics & Government, Relationships, American Literature, Latin American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction

Publication year 2021

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Family, Siblings, Coming of Age

Tags Coming of Age, Relationships, Addiction & Substance Abuse, Grief & Death, Parenting, American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction, Romance

Publication year 2000

Genre Essay Collection, Nonfiction

Tags Creative Nonfiction, Humor, Biography

David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day is a collection of twenty-seven essays exploring the author’s childhood in North Carolina, his relationship with his family, his time living in France, and observations about American social life. The book is comprised of two sections, Part One and Part Deux in which the latter half focuses primarily on Sedaris’s time in Normandy, France. Told with sardonic humor, each chapter deploys various levels of fantasy, irony, and other... Read Me Talk Pretty One Day Summary

Publication year 2011

Genre Novel, Fiction

Tags Italian Literature, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction

My Brilliant Friend is the first book in Italian writer Elena Ferrante’s world-acclaimed quartet of Neapolitan novels, which documents the friendship between Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo. It was originally published in 2011. Narrated in first person from Elena’s perspective, the novel opens with a present-day Prologue, in which Lila stages the ultimate disappearance. She not only vanishes in body but takes her possessions and cuts out her face from photographs, so as “to eliminate... Read My Brilliant Friend Summary

Publication year 2005

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Good & Evil

Tags Mystery & Crime Fiction, Western, Horror & Suspense, American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction

In No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigates a sudden spate of murders in his typically quiet corner of the Texas borderlands. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam vet and hunter, gets caught up in the aftermath of a drug-deal gone wrong, and soon both Sheriff Bell and a mysterious hit-man race to be the first to track Moss down: one with the intention of saving his life and the other... Read No Country for Old Men Summary

Publication year 2021

Genre Novel, Fiction

Themes Race, Immigration, Mothers, Family

Tags Historical Fiction, Immigration & Refugeeism, Gender & Feminism, Race & Racism, Trauma & Abuse, American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction, World History