Hello readers! If you had to pick just six books to put at the top of your summer reading list, what would you pick? I’d love to make a giant, long list of summer reading books but I’m cutting it down to just six to be realistic. I also tried to choose six books from a variety of genres to mix things up. I’ve mostly been reading horror and mysteries lately so I want to branch out. Here’s what I came up with:
What you are Looking for is in the Library, Michiko Aoyama (translated by Alison Watts)
This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.
Illuminations, T. Kingfisher
Rosa Mandolini knows in her heart that her family are the greatest painters of magical illuminations in the city. But the eccentric Studio Mandolini has fallen on hard times and the future is no longer certain.
While trying to help her family, Rosa discovers a strange magical box protected by a painted crow. But when she finds a way to open the box, she accidentally releases the Scarling, a vicious monster determined to destroy the Mandolini family at any cost.
The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon
McMahon’s unforgettable prose and meticulous research tell the story of America from the perspective of the unsung heroes whose devotion to their country will restore your faith in the American dream. The portraits of our nation’s most improbable champions, innovators, and rebels in this book celebrate the United States and reveal our common humanity.
Murder by Memory, Olivia Waite
Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.
Every Living Thing, Jason Roberts
In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster’s flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France’s royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible—how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species?
Brownstone, Samuel Teer (illustrated by Julia Mar)
Almudena has always wondered about the dad she never met.
Now, with her white mother headed on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without her, she’s left alone with her Guatemalan father for an entire summer. Xavier seems happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. And all along, she must navigate the language barrier of his rapid-fire Spanish—which she doesn’t speak.
Do any of these look good to you? What’s on your summer six list?
