2021 Adult Summer Reading List

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2021 Adult Summer Reading List

All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know about Getting and
Spending by Laura Vanderkam
How happy would you be if you had all the money in the world? Drawing on the
latest happiness research as well as the stories of dozens of real people,
Vanderkam offers a contrarian approach that forces us to examine our own
beliefs, goals, and values. (Goodreads)

American Royals by Katherine McGee
When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George
Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington
still sits on the throne. As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America's first
queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling.
(Goodreads)

Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Allire Sáenz
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has
an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming
pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending
time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that
changes lives and lasts a lifetime. (Amazon)

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a
brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the
medical industry … until a former employee tipped off Carreyrou and he started
asking questions. This is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since
Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush
frenzy of Silicon Valley. (adapted from Goodreads)

Beach Read by Emily Henry
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a
rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they
believe about happily ever afters. (From the cover)

Cavendon Hall: A Novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Cavendon Hall is home to two families: the aristocratic Inghams and the Swanns
who serve them. Lady Daphne is about to be presented at court when a
devastating event changes her life and threatens the Ingham name. With World
War I looming, both families will find themselves tested in ways they never
thought possible. (Amazon)

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
Caden Bosch is in his real world, struggling with school, and on a ship headed
towards the Challenger Deep. He is fighting within his own mind to keep a hold
on his reality. This book is influenced by Shusterman's son's struggles with
schizophrenia.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Sixteen-year-olds Camino Rios, of the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira Rios, of
New York City, are devastated to learn of their father's death in a plane crash
and stunned to learn of each other's existence. A novel in verse told in two
voices. (Follett)

Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave
Georgia Ford, bride-to-be, hops in her car and drives through the night to her
safe haven: her family, and the acclaimed family winery. Georgia craves the
company of those who know her best, and whom she truly knows. But when
Georgia arrives home, nothing is at all familiar. It seems her fiancé isn’t the only
one who’s been keeping secrets. (adapted from Amazon)

Finlay Donovan is Killing It: A Mystery by Elle Cosimano
Finlay is a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist. When she is
overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over
lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to
dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet. (Amazon)

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Funny in Farsi chronicles the journey of Dumas's family from Iran to Southern
California, and Firoozeh, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who
encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a
Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. (adapted from
Goodreads)

Glimmer as You Can by Danielle Martin
1962. In the middle of Brooklyn Heights sits the Starlite: boutique dress shop by
day, underground women's club by night. Glimmer As You Can captures the
heartbeat of an era and the ambitions of a generation of women living in a
man's world--a world threatened by a wave of change. (Amazon)
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of
memoir and self-help book. “This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey,
adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if
you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing
how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” (Kirkus
Reviews)

Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
Korey Fields is dead. When Enchanted Jones wakes with blood on her hands
and zero memory of the previous night, no one—the police and Korey’s fans
included—has more questions than she does. All she really knows is that this isn't
how things are supposed to be. Korey was Enchanted’s ticket to stardom.
(Goodreads)

Happy and You Know It by Laura Hankin
A dark, witty page-turner about a struggling young musician who takes a job
singing for a playgroup of overprivileged babies and their effortlessly cool moms,
only to find herself pulled into their glamorous lives and dangerous secrets. (From
the cover)

In This Grave Hour: A Maisie Dobbs Novel #13 by Jacqueline Winspear
Francesca Thomas has an urgent assignment for Maisie: to find the killer of a
man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy twenty-three years earlier during
the Great War. In a London shadowed by barrage balloons, bomb shelters and
the threat of invasion, within days another former Belgian refugee is found
murdered. (Goodreads)

Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter.
Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was
found sexually assaulting her on Stanford’s campus. Viewed by eleven million
people within four days, her victim impact statement inspired changes in
California law and the recall of the judge in the case. (Goodreads)

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. As
the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two
years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger,
Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at
random. (adapted from Amazon)

Outlawed by Anna North
On the day of her wedding, Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and
she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a midwife. But after a year of
marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely
hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she
knows. The Crucible meets True Grit in this riveting adventure story of a fugitive
girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the
Wild West. (Amazon)

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism & You by Ibram X. Kendi & Jason Reynolds
Framed through the ideologies and thoughts of segregationists, assimilationists,
and anti-racists throughout history, Stamped demonstrates that the “construct of
race has always been used to gain and keep power, whether financially or
politically,” and that this power has been used to systemically and systematically
oppress Black people in the United States for more than four hundred years.
(Goodreads)

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. When all they care for is destroyed
by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has
gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey towards an
uncertain future in Britain. (Goodreads)

The Calculating Stars: A Lady Astronaut Novel by Mary Robinette Kowal
It’s 1952 and a meteorite has destroyed Washington DC, triggering
extinction-level global warming. To save humanity, the world unites to form the
International Aerospace Coalition with the mission to colonize the Moon, then
Mars. Elma York, WWII pilot and mathematician, dreams of becoming an
astronaut – but prejudice has kept her grounded. Now nothing will stop her from
reaching for the stars. (adapted from the publisher)

The Chicken Sisters by K.J. Dell'Antonia
Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's have spent a century vying to serve up
the best fried chicken in Kansas--and the legendary feud between their owners
has lasted just as long. Amanda grew up working for her mom at Mimi's before
scandalously marrying Frank and changing sides to work at Frannie's. Tired of
being caught in the middle, Amanda sends an SOS to Food Wars, a reality TV
restaurant competition. But in doing so, she launches both families out of the
frying pan and directly into the fire. (adapted from Amazon)

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Tiffy and Leon share an apartment, but have never met. One takes the
apartment during the daytime, while the other takes it on nights and weekends.
Despite being opposites, they soon become friends - and maybe more.
(adapted from Amazon)

The Flight Girls by Noelle Salazar
Based on historical events, this book follows female pilot Audrey from 1941, when
she volunteers to teach male military pilots in Hawaii. After witnessing the attack
on Pearl Harbor from the air, she joins with the Women's Air Service Pilots to fill
pilot positions left behind by the all-male military pilot corps. Warning: keep a
box of tissues nearby throughout the book.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
1934: Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers
are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the
water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. Elsa, like so many of her
neighbors, must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go
west to California in search of a better life. (From the cover)

The Guest List by Lucy Foley
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people
joining their lives together as one. The cell phone service may be spotty and the
waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be
expertly executed. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the
happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why? (Goodreads)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Four people are stuck in a notoriously spooky, evil home called Hill House, where
a nightmare ensues. The perfect short, spooky read for summertime.

The Holdout by Graham Moore
Young juror Maya Seale is convinced that African American high school teacher
Bobby Nock is innocent of killing the wealthy white female student with whom
he appears to have been involved and persuades her fellow jurors likewise. Ten
years later, a true-crime docuseries reassembles the jurors, and Maya, now a
defense attorney, must prove her own innocence when one of them is found
dead in Maya's room. (Goodreads)
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
This Cinderella story gets its twist when Avery, a teen living out of her car and
dreaming of a financially stable future, inherits billionaire Tobias Hawthorne's
fortune. Avery is sure she's never met a Hawthorne in her life, but she's just
become the star player in Tobias's final puzzle. Forced to move into the rambling
Hawthorne House to retain the inheritance, Avery discovers that hidden
passageways aren't the only secrets on this estate. (School Library Journal)

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's
Ghettos by Judy Batalion
One of the most important stories of World War II, already optioned by Steven
Spielberg for a major motion picture: a spectacular, searing history that brings to
light the extraordinary accomplishments of brave Jewish women who became
resistance fighters—a group of unknown heroes whose exploits have never been
chronicled in full, until now. (Goodreads)

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go
on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have
lived, to see how things would be if you had made other choices ... Would you
have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?
(Goodreads)

The One by John Marrs
A simple DNA test is all it takes and soon you’ll be matched with the one you are
genetically made for. After five people have received the notification that
they’ve been “Matched,” they’re each about to meet their one true love. But
“happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates
have secrets. And some are more shocking than others. (Goodreads)

The Push by Ashley Audrain
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her
new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s
exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with
her daughter: she doesn’t behave like most children do. (Goodreads)

The Secret, Book, & Scone Society by Ellery Adams
Nora, the owner of Miracle Books, forms the Secret, Book, and Scone Society, a
group of damaged souls yearning to gain trust and earn redemption by helping
others, after a visiting businessman is found dead on the train tracks after he
reaches out to Nora for help. (Follett)
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A small-time magazine reporter lands the interview of a lifetime with reclusive
Hollywood starlet Evelyn Hugo, who is long retired. Split into seven sections, one
for each of her famed seven husbands, Evelyn tells the reporter her life story.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
A retelling of Homer's The Iliad, TSOA focuses on Patroclus, Achilles' partner
throughout the Trojan War. This is my favorite book of all time, and its prose is
beautiful and flowery without being overwhelming. It chronicles their lives from
early adolescence to death.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely septuagenarian friends meet
weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call
themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead,
the group suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
(adapted from Goodreads)

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Vanishing Half follows the lives of light-skinned twins who fled their
light-skinned town mysteriously at the age of sixteen. One marries a darker man,
while the other crafts a completely different life for herself. The book explores
identity, family, and race in a compelling and thought-provoking way.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
The bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of
rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people's minds,
which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life. (Amazon)

Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times by
Scott Pelley
A former news anchor, Pelley writes as a witness to events that changed our
world. In moving, detailed prose, he stands with firefighters on 9/11, advances
with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reveals private moments with
presidents. Truth Worth Telling offers a resounding defense of free speech and a
free press as the rights that guarantee all others. (adapted from Goodreads)

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a
viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with
snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life
― on an anonymous chat app created by Jack. (Goodreads)

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a
phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white
privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” He asks only for the
reader’s curiosity—but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the
antiracist fight. (Goodreads)

Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate
memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of navigating divorce,
forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or
wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability
to bring her full self to the table. (Goodreads)

Upstairs at the White House: My LIfe With the First Ladies by J.B. West
West offers an absorbing glimpse at America’s first families. Alive with anecdotes
ranging from the quotidian (LBJ’s showerheads) to the tragic (the aftermath of
Kennedy’s assassination), West’s book is an enlightening and rich account of the
American history that took place just behind the Palladian doors of the North
Portico. (adapted from Goodreads)

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have
become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having
given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades
before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. (Goodreads)
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