Oprah’s O Magazine has released its summer reading list. The list of “42 Amazing Beach Reads You Won’t Be Able to Put Down,” is featured in the magazine’s July issue, which has just hit newsstands.
The list includes reviews from Natalie Beach, Hamilton Cain, Leigh Haber, Sarah Meyer, Elyse Moody and Richard Nash. The leading book on the list is Bennington Girls Are Easy By Charlotte Silver, followed by In a Dark, Dark Wood By Ruth Ware and Stalin’s Daughter By Rosemary Sullivan.
Andrea Gilles’s new novel, The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay, and Blackout By Sarah Hepola, are among some of the other selections.
Back in mid-April, while living those few glorious days beside the ocean's gentle roar, I was asked some questions about my hoped-for summer reading. Two months have passed, and some of my predictions for myself have held true. Some predictions are still waiting to be fulfilled. Some books were in fact what I hoped they would be. Some (or, to be specific, one) severely disappointed.
This beautiful girl lives, by the way, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She's one of my teaching aides for the upcoming VAST Teacher Institute.
But here is who I was or thought I'd be, in mid-April, when contemplating these questions by the sea.
What are you reading this summer?
I have an exquisite pile of books waiting for me—Cheryl Strayed’s WILD, Katherine Boo’s BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS, Adam Gopnik’s WINTER, Loren Eiseley’s ALL THE STRANGE HOURS, and the GRANTA BOOK OF THE IRISH SHORT STORY (edited by Anne Enright and including such gems as the Colum McCann class “Everything in This Country Must”). I like to mix it up—new and old, memoir and fiction.
What was your favorite summer vacation?
Favorite is a hard word for me. Love is easier. I loved my family’s summers at the Jersey shore when I was a kid and my father taught me how to dig for the clams with our toes. I loved Prague and Seville with my husband and son. And last summer I fell head over heels for Berlin. Anybody would.
What’s your favorite book about summer?
Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD isn’t about summer, per se. But all of its most lush and important parts happen within and under the summer heat.
What was your favorite summer reading book as a kid?
How boring, how obvious, how true to admit that it was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY that enchanted me, again and again, as I sat collecting sun on my face with a piece of tin.
What is your favorite beach read?
I never read on the beach. I walk and look for dolphins. I read at night, when my body is still.
What’s the last book you devoured on a long flight?
The last time I was on a long flight I re-read BOOK OF CLOUDS by Chloe Aridjis. I was glad I did. I took off from Heathrow. I landed in Philadelphia. And in between I’d lived Berlin.
What’s your go-to book to read when you know you only have a few uninterrupted moments of peace?
I read Gerald Stern’s poems. They fix my migraines.
What’s a great book about discovery or travel to read on a long road trip over several days?
Steinbeck often works.
What would you re-read?
I will be re-reading Alyson Hagy’s BOLETO when it comes out in May from Graywolf. I read it in galleys, my Christmas Day present to myself. I was literally jumping off the cou
Anna is not thrilled when her father accepts a job transfer the summer before her junior year of high school, forcing her to leave her beloved beach and friends behind. Though they'll be living right on the ocean, Anna and her father's new home happens to be the same beach town where her parents fell in love and where her mother died...things Anna would just rather not have to confront.
While she gets to know her new surroundings, making friends, joining the cross country team, and flirting with lifeguards, Anna also begins to learn more about her parents, their relationship, and what led up to her mother's death. The ocean helps her in a healing process that never truly took place all those years ago and brings up memories that she and her father are now forced to talk about.
Though the cover led me to believe this was a super beachy romance, there really is a lot more in the pages of Jessi Kirby's debut novel. The descriptions of the ocean and what it does to Anna was gorgeous and I loved the role sea glass played in her healing process. The relationship between Anna and her dad was completely believable and I thought it played out nicely throughout the novel. All of their issues were definitely not solved, which I appreciated. No neat wrapping up into a bow.
The subject matter sounds on the heavy side and though there is a lot of emotional "stuff" going on, this was really a nice, end-of-summer, lighter read. The romance added an element of lightness and humor, as did Ashley, Anna's first friend in her new town. A really good read to finish up the summer with.
Sarah Dessen has a blurb on the front and rightly so. The book is reminiscent of her first books, with a splash of Jenny Han's "Summer" series thrown in.
MoonglassJessi Kirby232 pagesYoung AdultSimon & Schuster9781442416949May 2011Library copy
By: Laura,
on 8/2/2011
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Lest you think from our Back to School post that we’re completely over summer, we thought we’d highlight a few books that will get you through the rest of the dog days. There are still several more weeks left until it cools down, and these great reads will help you hang on to the summer days:
I’M A SHARK by Bob Shea
Even sharks can be afraid… (watch the adorable video)
DUDE: FUN WITH DUDE AND BETTY by Lisa Pliscou, illustrated by Tom Dunne
Dick and Jane…surfer style!
JUNONIA by Kevin Henkes
10-year-old Alice Rice grows up during her family’s annual summer vacation in Florida.
JEREMY BENDER VS. THE CUPCAKE CADETS by Eric Luper
Check out this hilarious video of Eric Luper interviewing Eric Luper.
WITHERING TIGHTS by Louise Rennison
A summer performing arts camp? Boys, snogging, and bad acting guaranteed! Recommend to your fans of “Glee” or Georgia Nicholson.
FINS ARE FOREVER by Tera Lynn Childs
Mermaids are the next vampires…or werewolves…or angels…! This sequel to
Coming soon to a screen near you. :) (Yeah, I spent waaaaaay too long making that thing, but it was fun.)
Do y'all like the new blog header, btw? I got hooked on Fireworks.
My heart was broken over the weekend. Oh, I know I SAID I was going to Savannah for the Children's Book Festival but I was REALLY going for cafe au lait and beignets at Hueys. So, after a semi-successful day at the festival, we rush to the riverwalk and spot the welcoming "Huey's" sign among all the other restaurants, bars, candy shops, gift shops. We decide to explore later. Coffee, like we haven't had since leaving Louisiana, beckoned.
Deciding to eat dinner before dessert (like our mothers taught us), my husband ordered a shimp Po' Boy and red beans and rice, and I ordered catfish, red beans and rice and sweet potato bread (yummy!) "Sorry. We're out of sweet potato bread," the waiter announced. Okay. I'm disappointed, but I'll live, although I still remembered how good that bread was from our trip last year. But, beignets and cafe au lait await, so just get over it, Mary!
Dinner was good. Not great, but good. Now...for dessert and coffee! "Would you care for dessert?" our waiter asked.
"Yup," my husband answered. No, he's not from Texas, and I don't know why he decided to channel a cowboy at that moment, but he went on, "we'd like an order of beignets and two cups of cafe au lait."
"The beignets I can do," the waiter said ominously, "but our coffee machine is broken, so we have no..."
I'm sure he went on to say they had 'no cafe au lait,' but my life flashed before my eyes and I got very lightheaded. The last thing I heard, before my husband helped me out of the restaurant was, "then forget the beignets!"
It's Monday, and I've recovered...almost.
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I love your answers! I'll read from my son's shelves but he generally won't read from mine.
What an interesting glimpse into your reading and your life :)
Summer reading memories for me involve Madeleine L’Engle’s books - The Wrinkle in Time Series, all the books about the Austins. Also Maud Hart Lovelace (Betsy-Tacy) and L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables).
I’m perusing my summer bookstack this morning, looking at what’s ahead...Anna Quindlen’s Lots of Candles Plenty of Cake, a first reading of Housekeeping don’t know how I missed it before), a re-read of Her Mother’s Daughter by Marilyn French, a short story collection, Shout Her Lovely Name.
And of course anything else that comes along.
I wrote one of my final papers about Housekeeping.
Great answers and I love Book Thief and Secret Garden...if you love Secret Garden, you can see some of that in The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair, which is set in India, which I adored.
I love Marilynne Robinson! I've only read Housekeeping and Gilead but they were enough to convince me of this love.
Have you read Wild yet? I'm anxious to read.
I've never read on the beach either.
I loved reading your answers and imagining you jumping on the couch, trying to get someone to listen to your favorite lines. :<)
The book I'm reading now is pure cotton candy for a light and airy lazy summer day. It got me in the perfect frame of mind for a slow and easy nap. ("In the Bag" by Kate Klise) Simply, with wit, fun!