If you are looking to read something over the summer with a little more substance, something you can recommend to your book club come fall, then consider these good for book clubs summer reading suggestions from Nancy Pearl.
Citizen Vince by Jess Walters – a darkly, comic, crime novel that has also been described as unexpectedly profound. 2005 Edgar award winner for best novel. Pearl says simply, “Read it.”
City of Thieves by David Benioff – this story takes place during WWII siege of Leningrad. Two prisoners of the Russian army are given an impossible task, find two dozen eggs in time for the wedding of the colonel’s daughter or be hunted down and shot.
Little Bee by Chris Cleave – a dark, character driven novel. Very powerful. It will break your heart.
Field Work: A Novel by Mischa Berlinski - Pearl describes this fictionalized memoir as a ‘why dunnit’. Set in Thailand, a journalist visiting his girl friend looks into the facts of a jailed American anthropologist who commits suicide while serving a 50 year sentence for murder. One of the few books where missionaries are depicted respectfully.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Amy and Isabelle) – winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (Pearl served as one of the three judges). Linked short stories set in Maine with an unlikeable main character. In the end, a magical book.
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger – Dustin Hoffman starred in the movie version. First published in 1964, it was hailed as one of the finest novels about the American West.
The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway (son of famed thriller writer John le Carre) – set in Britain in the not so very distant future. A post apocalyptic tale.
The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert – graphic memoir about the humanitarian mission of the volunteers that work with Doctors Without Borders in war torn Afghanistan.
Click here to purchase these books from your favorite Indie bookstore
More Nancy Pearl summer reading suggestions:
