It's time to finalize summer plans and for many of us that means deciding what books to read as much as it means deciding where to go. So tell us: What is the best book you've read so far this year? What should fellow listeners pack in their carry-on? We'll also hear from Bay Area booksellers about what's popular at their stores and what new releases they're excited about.
Listener Suggestions (Mentioned on Air):
- “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World” by Simon Winchester
- “The Mars Room” by Rachel Kushner
- “Shadow War” by Jim Sciutto
- “The American Agent” by Jacqueline Winspear
- “Enemy Child” by Andrea Warren
- “Alcoholics Anonymous - The Big Book” by Anonymous
- “White Tears” by Hari Kunzru
- “Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919” by Stephen Puleo
- “Miracle Creek” by Angie Kim
- “Spying on the South” by Tony Horowitz
- “Frogkisser” by Garth Nix
- “Beauty Queens” by Libba Bray
- “Motherhood” by Sheila Heti
- “There There” by Tommy Orange
- “Losing Earth” by Nathaniel Rich
- “Jump on the LOVE Train: Many hearts await You” by Rae Lewis
- “Circe” by Madeline Miller
- “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations” by Ronen Bergman
- “Murder in Bel Air” by Cara Black
- “Rules for Visiting” by Jessica Francis Kane
- “The Twilight of the Presidency” by George E. Reedy
- “Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir” by George Reedy
- “The First Wave” by Alex Kershaw
- “Madame Fourcade’s Secret War” by Lynne Olson
- “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshana Zuboff
- “A Crown for Cold Silver” by Alex Marshall
- “The Sentence is Death” by Anthony Horowitz
- “The Madonnas of Leningrad” by Debra Dean
- “Bottled Lightning” by Seth Fletcher
- “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
- “My Brother’s Husband” by Gengoroh Tagame and Anne Ishii
- “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles
- “The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought” by Arthur Waley
- “Bright Dead Things: Poems” by Ada Limon
- “The Carrying” by Ada Limon
- “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth” by Sarah Smarsh
- “Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World” by Shannon Watts
- “Gandhi Before India” by Ramachandra Guha
- “Monday’s Not Coming” by Tiffany Jackson
- “Queer: A Graphic History” by Meg-John Barker
- “No Greater Love: How My Family Survived the Genocide in Rwanda” by Tharcisse Seminega
Dan Stone’s Suggestions
- “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders
- “Ulysses” by James Joyce
- “The Hungry Ear” by Kevin Young
- “Wild Raspberries” cookbook by Suzie Frankfurt and Andy Warhol
- “Long Walk to Freedom” autobiography by Nelson Mandela
Cheryl McKeon’s Suggestions
- “Chimes of a Lost Cathedral” by Janet Fitch
- “High Season” by Judy Blundell
- “Ask Again Yes” by Mary Beth Keane
- “The Scent Keeper” by Erika Bauermeister
Leigh Odum’s Suggestions
- “Women Talking” by Mariam Toews
- “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater
- “Normal People” by Sally Rooney
- “Calypso” by David Sedaris
- “The Friend” by Sigrid Nunez
- “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” by John Carreyrou
- “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones