All this month we’re featuring a selection of fantastic summer reading selected by the experts at O, the Oprah Magazine.
What is an ideal summer read? That might be as personal a choice as the ideal vacation, but there are a few things we think of when we’re making a list of which books to pack with a swimsuit, hiking boots or a passport: we look for stories that take us on journeys as memorable as the ones we plan all year, works that will refresh us like a visit to a beloved place, voices that echo in memory after the season is over. Most of all, we want reading as special – and as fun – as the precious time we carve out of our routines for summer pleasures.
What to set aside for this summer’s book bag? We decided to ask Leigh Haber, Books Editor at O, The Oprah Magazine — whose “Reading Room” is a marvelous monthly guide to the best in new reading – and she shared with us the books she and the O Mag editors are most excited about, grouped helpfully into ten enticing and inspiring sets which you can explore – and sample – here.
FUTURE SHOCK
Like all standout speculative fiction, these books aren’t the result of authors squinting to look ahead, but rather with their heads cocked a bit to the side– looking back, and around. And in what they envision, destinies near and far, are traces of today – Widespread pandemics, fiscal crises, strange echoes of alternate histories, earth’s ecology in upheaval, and sex toys so real they descend into the uncanny valley.
SINNERS AND SAINTS
Start with the basics: bad guys and gals trying to make good. Sprinkle in a detective here and a paranoid schizophrenic there. Set deft fiction side by side with harrowing real life stories, then fold in heaping helpings of moral complexity. Add redemption for a little sweetness, bake in the sun while on the beach or reclining in a hammock, divide six ways— and devour as much as you like.
HEAR THEM ROAR
The women at the centers of these six essential titles are united in trying to navigate a host of fresh-off-your-Twitter-feed issues including but not limited to sizeism, sexism, public exhibitionism, boring boyfriends, violent boyfriends, cocaine, the internet, date rape, buried family secrets, judicial corruption, writer’s block, hook-up culture, and Eastern European sex slavery. In genres ranging from memoir to crime thriller to short fiction, the scenes–even those that, on the face of it, seem far-fetched– are achingly recognizable and all too real.
ICONS
They say don’t meet your heroes lest they disappoint you…Whatever. We say you should bring them along on vacation. These vivid portraits of luminary rock-stars, poets, provocateurs, and an author David Foster Wallace called “the country’s best living fiction writer” will provide scintillating companionship wherever summer finds you.
THE GILDED CAGE
Designer gowns. Luxurious apartments. Black Escalades. Lear jets. The trappings of the 1% may seem as enticing as they are elusive, but does wealth equal happiness, or is there something corrosive about it? These offerings go beneath the sheen of affluence to reveal its underbelly — Park Avenue as a prison, a Dickensian alternate reality perfectly drawn for our status-obsessed era–and to underscore the truth that at the end of the day, mortality gets us all.
LOVE AFFAIRS
At one time or another many of us have dropped everything to follow our hearts, been betrayed or betrayed vows for lust, or magically found (or re-found) the soulmate we had given up hope of ever connecting with. What better way to celebrate the return of summer than to immerse ourselves in the soul-reviving, hormone pumping, faith-renewing power of…..LOVE.
WAR & PEACE
In a world consumed by wars of all kinds – hot, cold, tepid (albeit intractable) – books make sense of the madness, inviting us to listen and to learn, to swim against tides of violence, and to reconcile other perspectives with our own. From peerless on-the-ground reporting to fictional adventures and misadventures, these summer books offer a range of startling new views, plumbing the complex reasons why countries – and couples – can’t always coexist peacefully.
ODYSSEYS
It’s a story as old as Greek mythology: a hero or heroine embarks on a voyage and in the process is transformed. The changes can be subtle or immense, whether for an African girl in the Old South or for a leading scientist decoding the mysteries of medicine, as he unearths family secrets. These titles explore how personal journeys mirror dramatic developments in the world, from the tragedies of the African diaspora to the satisfying simplicity of Scandinavian culture to a gourmand’s culinary escapades among the cities and villages of China.
AMERICAN PASTORAL
Lurking somewhere in the endless vistas of our wide and deep country are young girls becoming indigenous berserks, little towns slowly and silently fading away, fruited plains and ferocious rivers, natural disasters and man made ones, wild horses and their even wilder masters – all coexisting on a sprawling, mystic frontier.
BORN IN THE U.S.A.
What is America made of? Is it the landscape? The people? An idea? What we revolt against? What we produce? These nonfiction titles tackle those questions from exhilaratingly different angles—culture, crime, the natural and the bureaucratic—each enriching our understanding of our roots, our appreciation of home.
Looking for more inspirations for your summer reading? Explore more of The Best Books of Summer from the editors of O: The Oprah Magazine, in the B&N Review or in the pages of this month’s issue of O: The Oprah Magazine.
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/29lB2bp
Sig Nordal 