10 Cool Summer Books from #NYPLSummerBookshelf
Savor the last weeks of summer with a great read from our #NYPLSummerBookshelf. We’ve encouraged readers everywhere to visit our virtual branch and share their love of reading by showcasing their favorite summer books. Recommendations poured in from notable book lovers like Min Jin Lee, Rachel Bloom, Nicole A. Taylor, and more—watch them all.
From fun summer romances to historical fiction and even a cookbook, there’s a wide-range of titles to dip into for a late-summer read. Dive into one of these great books—then add your own recommendation to #NYPLSummerBookshelf!
The Agathas
by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson
Recommended by writer Mackenzie Reed
Alice Ogilvie's disappearance last summer is the biggest scandal at Castle Cove High School—until her ex-boyfriend is accused of murdering his new girlfriend, and Alice must pair up with her tutor to clear his name by relying on the wisdom of Agatha Christie.
From the Jump
by Lacie Waldon
Recommended by author Angie Hockman
Liv, an overworked graphic designer, decides to start saying “no” and quits her job to join her beloved group of college friends on a vacation in South Africa—where she finds herself falling for the emotionally unavailable Lucas. When they return home, Liv must decide between doing what she should…and risking everything for what she shouldn’t want.
Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island
by Emily Meggett
Recommended by food writer and cookbook author Nicole A. Taylor
This first major Gullah Geechee cookbook provides delicious recipes and the history of an overlooked American community. At 89 years old, Emily Meggett is a respected elder in the Gullah community of South Carolina who has lived on the island all her life, and even at her age, still cooks for hundreds of people out of her hallowed home kitchen.
How Do You Live?
by Genzaburō Yoshino; translated by Bruno Navasky
Recommended by author Min Jin Lee
Told in two voices, 15-year-old Copper struggles to confront inevitable and enormous change after his father's death and his uncle writes to him in a journal, sharing knowledge and advice in 1937 Japan.
The Last White Man
by Mohsin Hamid
Recommended by Lynn Lobash, Associate Director of Readers Services and Engagement at NYPL
One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Hamid's latest traces how one man's relationships are impacted when his skin changes color overnight.
Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus
Recommended by author and fashion editor Eva Chen
In the early 1960s, chemist and single mother Elizabeth Zott, the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show due to her revolutionary skills in the kitchen, uses this opportunity to dare women to change the status quo.
The Mutual Friend
by Carter Bays
Recommended by actress Rachel Bloom
It’s the summer of 2015, and Alice Quick needs to get to work. She’s 28 years old, grieving her mother, barely scraping by as a nanny, and freshly kicked out of her apartment. If she can just get her act together and sign up for the MCAT, she can start chasing her dream of becoming a doctor...but in the Age of Distraction, the distractions are so distracting. There’s her tech millionaire brother’s religious awakening. His picture-perfect wife’s emotional breakdown. Her chaotic new roommate’s thirst for adventure. And, of course, there’s the biggest distraction of all: Love.
The Song of Achilles
by Madeline Miller
Recommended by Tony Marx, President of NYPL
This epic retelling of the legend of Achilles follows Patroclus and Achilles, the golden son of King Peleus, as they, skilled in the arts of war and medicine, lay siege to Troy after Helen of Sparta is kidnapped—a cause that tests their friendship and forces them to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Time Is a Mother
by Ocean Vuong
Recommended by author Sarah Pearse
In this intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, contending with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America.
The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison
by Hugh Ryan
Recommended by Julie Golia, Associate Director, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books and Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts at NYPL
In this singular history of a prison that once stood in NYC’s Greenwich Village, Ryan explores the Women’s House of Detention, which ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment and is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Some of these inmates—Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur—were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine.
