O, The Oprah Magazine has listed their favorite books for the upcoming summer season. Below is the short version. You can see the full list in the July 2015 issue of the magazine.
Ladies on the move
Paris, He Said – Christine Sneed – Aspiring painter Jayne is questioning the choices she has made in the years since college and is struggling to pay her bills in Manhattan when she is given the opportunity to move to Paris with her wealthy lover and benefactor, Laurent Moller, who owns and operates two art galleries.
The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay – Andrea Gillies – Seeking refuge on a tiny Greek island after an estrangement from two brothers with whom she was in a long-time love triangle, Nina discovers in the wake of an accident the influence of her parents’ marriage on her own.
Re Jane – Patricia Park – Jane Re, a half-Korean, half-American orphan, escapes to Seoul where she reconnects with her family while struggling to learn the ways of modern-day Korea, and wonders if the man she loves is really the man for her as she tries to find balance between two cultures and accept who she really is.
Mysteries and Thrillers
The Ice Twins – S.K. Tremayne – Moving to a tiny Scottish island a year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah are shattered when their surviving daughter claims they have mistaken her identity and that she is actually the twin they believed dead.
Hyacinth Girls – Lauren Frankel – When her 13-year-old daughter Callie begins receiving suicidal notes from Robyn, the girl she supposedly bullied, Rebecca is determined to save the unbalanced Robyn, refusing to let the school stand in her way, but in doing so, unknowingly places her own daughter’s life in great danger.
Jack of Spades – Joyce Carol Oates – Enjoying his successful career and devoted family, a best-selling writer secretly authors a masochist-themed series that threatens his respectable community standing and becomes subject to a plagiarism lawsuit.
Biography and Memoir
The Pawnbroker’s Daughter – Maxine Kumin – A new collection of work from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet depicts her childhood during the Depression in Philadelphia, her education at Radcliffe College, her rural New England farm and the changing tone and subject matter of her poetry over her lifetime.
My Generation – William Styron – collection of work spanning the career of the author includes complex pieces on race as well as extracts describing his daily walks with his beloved dog.
Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County – Kristen Green – A reporter, combining hard-hitting investigative journalism with a sweeping family narrative, exposes a little-known chapter of American History, revealing her hometown’s shameful legacy of refusing to integrate after the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education.
Literary Fiction
Our Souls at Night – Kent Haruf – A senior-aged widow and widower forge a loving bond over shared loneliness and respective histories, provoking local gossip and the disapproval of their grown children in ways that are further complicated by an extended visit by a sad young grandchild.
Death and Mr. Pickwick – Stephen Jarvis – A novel based on the life of artist Robert Seymour describes the birth of “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,” a series of whimsical sketches by Seymour that were paired with stories by a young Charles Dickens, using the pen name Boz.
The Sunlit Night – Rebecca Dinerstein – In the barren landscape of the Far North, under the ever-present midnight sun, Frances, who lives in an isolated artist colony, and Yasha, who arrives from Brooklyn to fulfill his beloved father’s last wish, form a bond that offers them solace amidst great uncertainty.
Happy Summer Reading!
. Any way you look at it, a book club can be a wonderful thing, as long as the group can decide on the books they want to read and discuss. No matter the demographic of a book club, this is often the hardest part.
Kirsten and Walk, seventh-graders at an elite private school, alternate telling how race, wealth, weight, and other issues shape their relationships as they and other misfits stand up to a mean but influential classmate, even as they are uncovering a long-kept secret about themselves.
Thirteen-year-old Conor awakens one night to find a monster outside his bedroom window, but not the one from the recurring nightmare that began when his mother became ill, but an ancient, wild creature that wants him to face truth and loss.
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