What’s on Your Summer Reading List?

Summer reading season is here. What belongs in your beach bag — or on your nightstand? We talk with Bay Area booksellers and authors about the books that they recommend, from light, breezy reads to delicious mysteries to the doorstopper you’ve been putting off. And we hear from you: what are you reading?

Guests:

• Vanessa Hua, author, “Coyoteland,” “Forbidden City” and “A River of Stars”
• Brad Johnson, owner, East Bay Booksellers in Oakland
• Kit Fitzgerald, co-founder, bookseller, Noe Valley Books
• Hannah deBree, founder, Tender Buttons Books, an online indie book site
• Gary Shteyngart, author, “Vera, or Faith,” and “Super Sad True Love Story,”
  

** Link to the author’s interview on Forum

Brad Johnson, East Bay Booksellers

• Riverwork, Laura Robertson
• Wishbone, Laia Jufresa
• Beginning Middle End, Valeria Luiselli
• **How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information, Tom Mullaney (nonfiction)

Vanessa Hua, author of “Coyoteland”

• The Hill, Harriet Clark
• Where the Girls Were, Kate Schatz. 
• When We’re Born We Forget Everything, Alicia Jo Rabins (memoir)
• I Have A Thing for Flowers, Alicia Lang Sachin (memoir)
• Under Story, Chloe Benjamin (publishing in September) (also recommended by Anita Felicelli)

Kit Fitzgerald, Noe Valley Books 

• Meet Me in the Garden, Nina LaCour 
• Canon, Paige Lewis
• We Were Forbidden, Jacquline Harpman
• Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke
• Dungeon Crawler Carl Series, Matt Dinniman
• Fabulous Bodies, Chuck Tingle
• The Blue Moon Cafe & 24-Hour Occult Emporium, Lexie Sharabianlou
• ** Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000, Barry Walters (nonfiction)
• Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers, Carlos Barragán (nonfiction)
• London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth, Patrick Radden Keefe

Gary Shteyngart, author of “Vera” and “Super Sad True Love Story”

• A Tender Age, Chang Rae Lee (publishing mid-August)
• The Sensualist, Gary Shteyngart (publishing November)

Hannah deBree, Tender Buttons Books

• 14 Ways of Looking, Erin Vincent (Memoir)
• Ply, Hernan Diaz (publishing in September)
• May We Feed the King, Rebecca Perry (publishing in September)

Anita Felicelli, book editor, Alta Journal

• Contrapposto, Dave Eggers 
• Paradiso 17, Hannah Lillith Assadi
• Earth 7, Deb Olin Unferth 
• My Dear You, Rachel Khong 
• Mendo: How an Unlikely Group of Rebels Turned Cannabis into California’s Cash Crop, Charlie Harris (nonfiction)
• Exit Party, Emily St. John Mandel (publishing in September)
• American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee (publishing in September)

Zoe Williams, bookseller, Green Apple Books

• John of John, Douglas Stuart 
• Am I the Ghost Here, Kim Samek (short story collection)
• On Witness & Repair, Jesmyn Ward (nonfiction)

Our Listeners Recommend:

• Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
• The Young Will Remember, Eve J. Chung 
• Girlfriending, Susanna Daniel
• Keeper of My Kin, Ada Ferrer
• Migrant Heart, Reyna Grande 
• The Desert Spring Movement, Arel Wiederholt Kassar 
• Theo of Golden, Allen Levi
• The Correspondent, Virginia Evans
• A Little Bit Bad, Cassandra Neyenesch 
• Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun, Mónica Ojeda (translated by Sarah Booker)
• The Calamity Club, Kathryn Stockett
• Forget I Told You This, Hillary Zaid
• Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef, Nephi Craig (nonfiction)
• The Jailhouse Lawyer, Calvin Duncan & Sophie Cull (memoir)
• Famesick, Lena Dunham (memoir) 
• To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse, Howard Fishman (biography) 
• The Codebreaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, Walter Isaacson (nonfiction)
• My Palestinian American Life, Patricia Mousa (memoir)
• Young Man in a Hurry, Gavin Newsom (autobiography)
• Lust for Life, Irving Stone (biography)
• Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders, Vanessa Angelica Villareal (nonfiction)
• City of Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith (nonfiction)
• ** Age of Extraction, Tim Wu (nonfiction)

For younger readers, Kit Fitzgerald recommends: 

Middle Grade:

• Clementine H Hopeful is Not a Hero, Noah Corey
• The Second Life of Snap, Erin Entrada Kelly
• Heartland, Jilanne Hoffman
• The Shark Prince, Malia Maunakea
• The Moon Without Stars, Chanel Miler
• Life on the Moon, Matthew Swanson
• The Chismosas Only Book Club, Laekan Zea Kemp

Kid Graphic Novels:

• New Girl: First Crush, Cassandra Calin
• Hilo Series, Judd Winnick 

YA:

• **Estela, Undrowning, René Peña Govea 
• **Lies We Tell About the Stars, Susie Nadler
• Heartstopper Vol. 6, Alice Oseman