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The Obsession

Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts is famous for her steamy romance novels, and while most of her plots are very similar to one another, Roberts does an immaculate job of setting the scene and really pulling the reader in to the plot. It’s awesome to get sucked into a good and well-told story, and Nora Roberts does not disappoint in that regard.

The Obsession is about a woman who, haunted by her father’s crimes and the associated childhood trauma, chooses to live a solo, quiet, and nomadic lifestyle, and finally chooses to buy a secluded home in a small coastal town in Washington state. Of course, the town’s local mechanic happens to be very hot, very around to be enlisted for work around her home renovations, and very into mysterious, blonde photographers who won’t give him the time of day. Danger and mystery follows the plot, which prevent the novel from being just a romance. You should read this book if you’re looking for an exciting chick-flick book or light reading to bring to the beach!

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101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Brianna Wiest

This collection of 101 essays is intended to challenge your perspective and open your mind to potentially life-changing ideas and routines. Written by Brianna Wiest, this popular compilation has every reader re-thinking their daily life, current life trajectory, intentions, and mentality in productive and bite-size ways that are accessible and action-oriented. This could be the book that changes your life!

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Kaleidoscope

Cecily Wong

Not exactly a light beach read, Kaleidoscope is a moving and provocative novel about loss, identity, and family. The book centers around the bond between two sisters and is a gripping tale that will pull at your heartstrings. A sudden family loss leads to the questioning of familial relationships and a globe-trotting experience in search of answers and reconciliation with truth.

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To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret

Jedidiah Jenkins

This true, adventure-driven recollection is the tale of a man who cycled from Oregon to Patagonia for 16 months. At 30 years old, Jedidiah Jenkins shares his struggles with pursuing a fulfilled life. His cycling odyssey makes for a frank, epic, and brutal account of his shifting perspective on the world and reconciling his time in it. This book will appeal to all adventure and travel-lovers.

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The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

A unique and brilliant piece of historical fiction, The Book Thief revolves around a small German girl living in Nazi Germany. In the height of the Holocaust, she comes home from school one day and finds that her foster parents are hiding a Jewish man in the basement. Liesel and Max become fast friends and develop a great bond over the families they have left behind and how literature helps them cope with moving forward.

Written from the perspective of Death as narrator, The Book Thief is a spectacularly well-written, riveting, and moving novel that is impossible to put down. You should read it if you enjoy historical fiction, and even if you find that historical fiction is normally too dry for you, this novel is very easy to swallow. It is comparable to the best-selling All the Light We Cannot See. The Book Thief is a #1 New York Times bestseller of international renown and is written by Markus Kusak.

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Swing Time

Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith made her lightning debut through works such as On Beauty and White Teeth, and has published another eye-opening story dealing with racial and cultural barriers. Set in London, New York, and West Africa, Swing Time is a sensational celebration of music, dance, and friendship. Two young girls bond over their love for dance, but break into separate life trajectories. Their friendship is broken but unforgotten, and Smith explores the depths of human connection in this stunning read.

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The Paris Apartment

Lucy Foley

Written by New York Times best selling author Lucy Foley, this compelling mystery and thriller will kick your summer reading list off into high gear. The Paris Apartment is about a young woman looking for a fresh slate in Paris, where she temporarily moves in with her brother. However, her own problems fade as her brother’s secrets surface in his upscale but darkly suspicious apartment building. His abrupt disappearance and the shady circumstances and characters surrounding his absence creates a thrilling plot where everyone becomes a suspect.

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It Starts With Us

Colleen Hoover

A quintessential easy summer read, It Starts With Us is perfect for any pool or beach entertainment. Bestselling author Colleen Hoover has written multiple romantic books that slammed the charts, and It Starts With Us is the much-anticipated sequel to the popular It Ends With Us. The novel features the complications of a past flame resurfacing in a recently-divorced woman’s life, but this rediscovered passion throws trouble into her relationship with her ex-husband and the daughter that they share. Get your share of drama this summer with this pick!

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And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie

A classic whodunit mystery thriller, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is the best selling crime novel of all time. On a remote island, ten strangers find themselves brought together unexpectedly, having been invited by mysterious contacts, and cut off from the rest of the mainland. On their first night, each of their past criminal histories, that they have kept secret for years, is revealed to the others, and from that point on, suspicion reigns as one by one, mysterious death claims the lives of the group. The killer is amongst them—can they find who it is before their own untimely death?

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The Firm

John Grisham

The Firm is the kind of book that makes your own life pale in comparison. Why am I not running for my life from the FBI and the Mafia and outsmarting the entire world? By John Grisham’s account, I should be! The Firm is a classic legal thriller and is a hallmark of Grisham’s writing career. The book follows a young, ambitious, and brilliant lawyer named Mitch just embarking upon his career in law, who falls into a powerful but strangely controlling law firm. Mitch begins to notice questionably illegal activities within the firm, and when the FBI and the Mafia become involved, Mitch finds himself gambling with his marriage, career, and life as he tries to find a way to outsmart them all.  The film adaptation, starring Tom Cruise, is also worth a watch after reading the novel!

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Atonement

Ian McEwan

Set in rural England in the 1930s on the cusp of World War II, Ian McEwan’s Atonement differentiates itself with its metafictional writing style and alternating points of view.  A young girl with a dangerous, dramatic imagination makes the decision to spread a story of her older sister and her sister’s beau that dooms him and his reputation. The implications of her choice break apart family and love, and regret and despair resonate throughout the rest of the novel as it jumps forward in time. A great work of historical fiction, you will enjoy this novel if you enjoy wartime drama. It is similar to Never Let Me Go by Kazu Ishiguro.

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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith

An American classic and bildungsroman about a strong young woman growing up in the neighborhood of Brooklyn set in the early 1900s, this novel is a rich and perceptive work of literary art. Published in 1943, it is a somewhat-autobiographical account of an immigrant family and the hardships they faced. Francie Nolan is familiar with struggle from a young age, with poverty, alcoholism, divorce, and loss all playing a part in her challenging life. A well-loved and well-respected novel from its first publication, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn explores resilience and rising to adversity.

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Beach Read

Emily Henry

The perfect 2023 beach read, this romantic comedy is a fantastic selection to keep things light and fluffy this summer while you lounge at the pool. Emily Henry delivers a fun and compelling plotline about an unlikely pair who stand at odds with simply everything- and that is exactly why they fall for each other. Beach Read will scratch every reader’s itch for an entertaining page-turner, as a summer romance blossoms between two writers who believe in completely different things.

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The Inimitable Jeeves

P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse is a classical British author who wrote the book on satire and comedy, reigning the 1930s with his bestselling works. His supreme popularity is rooted in his talent for intelligent and finely-worded humor, one of his most treasured works being The Inimitable Jeeves. As with most of Wodehouse’s works, The Inimitable Jeeves centers around Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, a gentleman and his butler, their humorous relationship, and the chaotic, very-British debacles and witty dialogue that ensues. 

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A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway

Artwork in writing form, Ernest Hemingway’s posthumously-published work is a highly romanticized semi autobiography. A Moveable Feast depicts Hemingway’s wonderful, if struggling, time in Paris as a young and undiscovered writer, newly married to his beautiful wife Hadley, and their little son, Bumby. Life is simple, good, poor, and happy as they don’t have much, but they have each other, writing, and Paris. Hemingway describes his cold nights writing by the hearth and scrimping by with tea, making waves in the well-known ex-patriate society of Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, and Gertrude Stein. You should read this book if you are a fan of Hemingway, of reading about the time of the ‘Lost Generation’ after World War I, and of Paris. You will consider quitting your job to take up writing in dusty corner of poorly-lit Parisian cafes as Hemingway did, even if you have never had the slightest inclination to do so before reading it.

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On the Road

Jack Kerouac

Based loosely off of his own wandering, Jack Kerouac’s best-known work depicts the lost and vagrant lifestyle of the beat generation in the 1950s. Romantic and imaginative, Kerouac’s aimless meanderings are rife with random messes that he walks into (and also leaves behinds) as he and his buddies drive cross country, become broke and stuck in one place until they raise enough money to get out, and stir up trouble. A classic American piece of literature, On the Road should be read by everyone, particularly any free spirits and travelers, in order to be simply inspired by Keraouc’s unfulfilling but vibrant travels and broke-n-bummin’ lifestyle.

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The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

A best-seller based off the author’s own life, The Kite Runner is written by a man who spent his childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan in a motherless home. As a young boy, Amir witnessed an unspeakable crime committed against his best friend, and his failure to act, defend, or speak out burdens him with a guilt that consumes him, through adulthood, until he finds a way to make up for his decision. The Kite Runner explores the racial and cultural tensions in Afghanistan, gives great insight to the experience of political refugees, and explores themes of family, guilt, forgiveness, and brotherhood. There are some dreadful moments in this book, horrible circumstances that make you wince as you read, and a moving ending. Since the book is based on real life events, the courage of the author, Khaled Hosseini, is very evident. This is his life and his story of the most shameful act he feels he has ever committed. Can you imagine sharing the story that haunts you, that action you did not take, the guilt you carried for your entire existence? Hosseini makes all readers question what they would have done in his place. You never know until you are under fire, in the moment, if you would stay and fight—or if you would run. 

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A Room with a View

E.M. Forster

A delightful, light read that is perfect for summertime, A Room with a View is a romantic and clever novel about a secret, complicated romance set in rural England. A young woman meets a captivating, outspoken man on vacation in Italy, and although the attraction is obvious to both, the woman becomes engaged to another upon her return to England. However, their story does not end there. You will enjoy the quirky and amusing characters and their eccentric views; A Room with a View is as much a comedy as a romance. Give this a read if you enjoy Jane Austen and other Victorian style novels!

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The Bestseller

Olivia Goldsmith

A smashing fiction of romance, drama, and revenge, The Bestseller follows a not-so-friendly competition between five writers fighting for a bestselling novel. Their battle for the top is full of mistakes, glamor, and trickery as they scratch and claw for agents and success in the New York literary scene. Feisty and fun, The Bestseller will not let you down!

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Raymon Carver

One of the most popular and well-known collections of American short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is unlike anything else you’ve read. Raymond Carver is known for his blatantly stark and bleak take on the concept of love and how it is used and abused by men and women alike. These harsh stories took the literary world by storm in the 1980s and brought the power of the American short story back into the literary spotlight.

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Little Women

Louise May Alcott

You’ve obviously heard of it, but have you read it? A heart-warming American classic, Little Women is a traditionally can’t-escape type of novel. It is an easy and light summer read that will have readers laughing and falling in love with the quirks of the characters. It is an idealistic novel and one much removed from today’s culture, but will forever be an undying treasure in readers’ hearts. Love, family, humor, and grief takes over the plot of this charming family of four sisters who find their separate life paths in 1860s New England.

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The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor--the Truth and the Turmoil

Tina Brown

Now, here’s the tea. The Palace Papers dives into behind-the-scenes insights of the British royal family. All the gossip your heart could desire about the royal family is laid out, making for a highly entertaining summer read. Get to know the royal family much better through The Palace Papers, where Tina Brown dives into the drama, divide, romance, and family affairs that we probably have no business knowing. 

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Faces in the Crowd

Valeria Luiselli

A moving, meaningful, and cryptic work of literature that captures a reader’s imagination and attention immediately, Faces in the Crowd has you marveling at the author’s prowess and romanticism. Luiselli’s whimsical, semi-autobiographical style wraps you into this fragmented story of changing perspectives and protagonists, and is thoroughly a writer’s book. There are three sections; first, a heavy-hearted young mother struggling to write of her liberated, artistic past while her husband peers over her shoulder and her son screams for her in the living room; second, the woman as she was in her past single life (or is it a fictional character?), where she researched and daydreamed about obscure poetry in Manhattan in the late 1900’s, living haphazardly on cigarettes and barebone furniture and messy friends; third, a Mexican poet named Gilberto Owen- a man who actually did live through the Harlem Renaissance. Slowly yet suddenly, perspectives fragment and shift; fact and fiction blur; ghosts, failures, and memories distort the narrative. There are many levels to this piece of literature, each building on one another to make a mysterious, romantic, and haunting masterpiece.