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The 13 Hottest Summer Reads
Sara Nelson picks the summer’s beach-reading musts, including a long-awaited Pat Conroy novel, the tale of Facebook’s creators, and a celebrity drunkalog with juicy anecdotes about not sleeping with Frank Sinatra.
And... they’re off. Just as Memorial Day announces the start of summer, so, too, do readers begin packing vacation bags with novels, stories, and biographies to read from now through August. Here’s a baker’s-dozen list of the must-reads, the great reads—and the slightly offbeat titles you might not yet have thought of, but will likely be hearing a lot more about.
The Girl Who Played with Fire By Stieg Larsson 512 Pages. Knopf. $25.95
The Girl Who Played with Fire
by Stieg Larsson
In an American mystery writer’s hands, this novel—the second in a trilogy that began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—might read like a Law & Order episode. But the late Swedish journalist-turned-novelist’s brooding tone and the fantastically odd bisexual geek heroine Lisbeth Sander make this everything the folks at Knopf have been crowing that it is: riveting, unputdownable, a sure bestseller.
The Accidental Billionaires By Ben Mezrich 272 pages. Doubleday. $25
The Accidental Billionaires
by Ben Mezrich
Lucky for the hundreds of millions of Facebook devotees that Mark Zuckerberg’s parents apparently never made him shut off his computer. Zuckerberg, an unpopular nerd at Harvard, invented the social-networking site one night in his dorm room, becoming, by age 25, a billionaire several times over. The author of the bestselling Bringing Down the House chronicles that success—and the relationships it both created and destroyed.
The Invisible Mountain By Carolina de Robertis 384 pages. Knopf. $24.95.
The Invisible Mountain
by Carolina de Robertis
This debut about three generations of strong women in late 20th-century Uruguay is the brainiest dynastic novel in years. A high-end, Euro Danielle Steel story full of sex, politics and family—with just a little bit of magical realism to give literary heft to the whole delightful concoction.
Satchel By Larry Tye 416 pages. Random House. $26.
Satchel
by Larry Tye
Woody Allen named one of his children for the “majestic and enigmatic” pitcher born Leroy Paige in pre-civil-rights Alabama. (The nickname comes from his work as a railroad porter.) Well-known for his remark about age—“If you don’t mind, it don’t matter”—Paige emerges here as a child of a washerwoman who developed his pitch in reform school and went on (at age 42!) to lead the Cleveland Indians to the World Series.
The Bolter By Frances Osborne 320 pages. Knopf. $30.
The Bolter
by Frances Osborne
The author is the great granddaughter of Idina Sackville, a Jazz Age femme fatale who flouted convention by doing exactly as she pleased, the woman some say inspired the character of “the Bolter” in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. Through diaries, letters, and countless interviews, Osborne recreates her ancestor’s life and loves, from England to Kenya and back again.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
The Big Books of Fall
Sara Nelson is a critic for The Daily Beast and the former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. She is the author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time.
The Savory Life of Sheila Lukins
Sara Nelson is a critic for The Daily Beast and the former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. She is the author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time.
Dan Brown: Book Killer
Sara Nelson is a critic for The Daily Beast and the former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. She is the author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time.
Too bad that every book on this list has yet to be released. A few have a June debut date, but quite a few won't be released until the end of July or August. It would have been nice if you had put the release dates near the titles, since we won't be reading most of these books until summer is almost over!
In the case of the Larsson book, it has been available for several months via amazon.co.uk. Even with shipping, the price is comparable and the U.K. covers are a much better design than the releases here.
Error: You have a book listed as "The Judy Garland Life." The title on the cover clearly reads "My Judy Garland Life."
Don't miss "The End of Overating" by David Kessler, head of the FDA during the Clinton administration. It's the most important book to deal with the food emergency in this country since Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma". Kessler explains how big food is manipulating the food supply to keep eaters in a state of craving and hypereating, then explains what eaters can do about it. You'll never look at processed food the same way again.
This is an underwhelming list. If this is the best about to be released, I'll make do with classics.
On the theory that--call me crazy--July books count as summer reads, let me recommend "Dreaming in Hindi" by Katherine Russell Rich. As a cancer survivor and newly unemployed person, she looks for a new passion in life and finds it in moving to India for a year to learn, for no particular reason, a new and difficult language. Would I ever have gone shopping for a book that combines autobiography with comedy with travel with neuroscience? No, but a galley fell into my lap and I woke up 150 pages later. Now I'm schlepping it around and reading bits of it every chance I get.
Underwhelming indeed!! Not one sounds even a little bit interesting, except perhaps the one about Satchel Paige. At any rate, I have my own list of "beach reads" all ready to go!!
The Bolter is excellent! Anyone interested in the end of the Empire will like it.
Maile Meloy's short story collection, "Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it" certainly belongs on this list. A compelling read by one of our best young writers.
Excellent list! But you forgot my absolute summer favorite- the hilarious and marvelously witty Everything Sucks by debut novelist Hannah Friedman. I was shocked by how sharp this lady is- I bought 3 copies after I finished the book for all of my nieces!
Thank you.
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