I didn’t love Christine Murphy’s Notes on Surviving the Fire. I speed-read it to find out what happened, but the narrator was not to my liking and I didn’t love the story. Amazon: “At a Ph.D. program in Southern California, Sarah and her best friend, Nathan, spend their time working on their theses, getting high, and keeping track of the poor air quality due to nearby forest fires. No one believes Sarah when she reports a fellow student for raping her at a party—“He’s such a good guy!”—and the Title IX office simply files away the information, just like the police. Nathan is the only person who cares. When Sarah finds Nathan dead of an overdose from a drug he’s always avoided, she knows something isn’t right. She starts investigating his death as a murder, and as the pieces fall into place, she notices a disturbing pattern in other student deaths on campus. As a girl, Sarah grew up in the forests of Maine, following her father on hunts, learning how to stalk prey and kill, but only when necessary. Now, she must confront a different type of killing—and decide if it can be justified.” I can’t recommend this one.

I can’t recall where I got the recommendation for Cherished Belonging by Gregory Boyle (perhaps from school summer reading last year?), but what a fascinating listen. I kept sharing ideas from it with family and friends and it really made so much sense. Amazon: “Over the past thirty years, Gregory Boyle has transformed tens of thousands of lives through his work as the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention program in the world. The program runs on two unwavering principles: 1) We are all inherently good (no exceptions), and 2) we belong to each other (no exceptions). Boyle believes that these two ideas allow all of us to cultivate a new way of seeing the world. Rather than the tribalism that excludes and punishes, this new narrative proposes a village that cherishes. Pooka, a former gang member, puts it plainly: ‘Here, love is our lens. It is how we see things.’ In Cherished Belonging, Boyle calls back to Christianity’s origins as a spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace. Early Christianity was a way of life—not a set of beliefs. Boyle’s vision of community is a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living, a world dedicated to kindness as a constant and radical act of defiance. As one homie, Marcus, told a classroom filled with inner-city teenagers, ‘If love was a place, it would be Homeboy.’ Cherished Belonging invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with kindness. Boyle believes that ‘the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion.’ Through colorful and profound stories brimming with wisdom, humor, and inspiration, we understand that love is the light inside everything.” I really enjoyed listening to this book, especially as it was read by the author.

Everyone knows how I feel about Reese Witherspoon and her book picks. Summer is the perfect time to dive in to a new one: The Fine Art of Lying by Alexandra Andrews. Amazon: “In the beginning, there was art. It was Clare Bast’s love of art that saved her from a bleak, predictable life in upstate New York, and drew her to the cultured world of Manhattan’s Upper East Side where she met Jed, her doting, affluent husband. Despite her best efforts—including a half-finished PhD, abandoned when her daughter Sadie was born—Clare secretly can’t help but feel like an imposter in Jed’s one-percent, Park-Avenue life. When the well-connected wife of Jed’s new boss introduces her to influential friends—a curator here, a gallerist there, an aficionado abroad—Clare feels an essential part of herself coming alive again. And when she discovers that an important work painted by the subject of her unfinished dissertation is hanging in the brownstone of a seductively attractive dealer, she believes fate is leading her where she belongs . . . until she finds herself at the scene of a gruesome murder and a stolen masterpiece. Caught in the perfectly wrong place at the perfectly wrong time, every clue the investigation uncovers points back to her. Suddenly, Clare is trapped inside a dark and treacherous art world filled with unscrupulous dealers and international criminals. What, exactly, has she gotten herself into . . . and how is she going to get herself, and her family, out?” This was a great beach read – suspenseful, surprising, and a good story.

Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser was a disappointment. I had it on my list for so long and had heard so many wonderful things about it, that I was delighted when I finally got it from the library. It was far too long, however, and, while the descriptions of art were interesting and the story was very good, I just ended up skipping a great deal of the interactions of the grandfather and Mona about the art as it got really old after a while. I am glad I read it to see what all the hype was about, but overall, it wasn’t for me. “While the doctors can find no explanation for Mona’s brief episode of blindness, they agree that the threat of permanent vision loss cannot be ruled out. The girl’s grandfather, Henry, may not be able to stop his granddaughter from losing her sight, but he can fill the encroaching darkness with beauty. Every Wednesday for a year, the pair abscond together and visit a single masterpiece in one of Paris’s renowned museums. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona learns how each artist’s work shaped the world around them. In turn, the young girl’s world is changed forever by the power of their art. Under the kind and careful tutelage of her grandfather, Mona learns the true meaning of generosity, melancholy, love, loss, and revolution. Her perspective will never be the same—nor will the listener’s. Mona’s Eyes is a heartfelt, enlightening journey across five centuries of Western art history. With the emotional impact of The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the listenability of The Little Paris Bookshop, Thomas Schlesser’s sensational debut novel is at once a moving book about the beauty of life and a deeply touching story about the special bond between a girl and her grandfather.” (Amazon)

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn is a fascinating story. Amazon: “It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her seventy-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then wept. He knew this day would come.
The Kuehns, a prominent Berlin family, saw the rise of the Nazis as a way out of the hard times that had befallen them. When the daughter of the family, Eberhard’s sister, Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels at a party, the two hit it off, and they had an affair. But Ruth had a secret―she was half Jewish―and Goebbels found out. Rather than having Ruth killed, Goebbels instead sent the entire Kuehn family to Hawaii, to work as spies half a world away. There, Ruth and her parents established an intricate spy operation from their home, just a few miles down the road from Pearl Harbor, shielding Eberhard from the truth. They passed secrets to the Japanese, leading to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. After Eberhard’s father was arrested and tried for his involvement in planning the assault, Eberhard learned the harsh truth about his family and faced a decision that would change the path of the Kuehn family forever. Jumping back and forth between Christine discovering her family’s secret and the untold past of the spies in Germany, Japan, and Hawaii, Family of Spies is fast-paced history at its finest and will rewrite the narrative of December 7, 1941.” I listened to this one, which I highly recommend. It kept me on the edge of my seat and was a great listen.

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas came highly recommended. Amazon: “‘When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.’ And so we are introduced to our narrator who’s “a work of art in herself” (The Washington Post): a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir—a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus—their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding. Vladimir takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. This edgy, uncommonly assured debut perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.” I struggled a bit to get through this one, so it was a good thing it was on the shorter side. It certainly picked up at the end, but overall, it wasn’t a favorite. Also, the cover art for this version absolutely does not capture that the protagonist is in her sixties and that he was tied to a castle-throne type chair at a cabin having nothing to do with a writing table. Disappointing when the illustrator hasn’t read the book they are making cover art for…

Anna Quindlen is a favorite of mine. And, while I liked More Than Enough, it wasn’t a favorite. After Annie, Miller’s Valley, Object Lessons, A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Blessings, One True Thing, Black and Blue (most of these were read before I had my blog – I really loved One True Thing).”High school English teacher Polly Goodman can talk about everything and anything with the women in her book club, which is why they’ve become her closest friends and, along with her veterinarian husband, the bedrock of her life. Her students, her fraught relationship with her mother, her struggles with IVF—Polly’s book club friends have heard about it all. But when they give Polly an ancestry test kit as a joke, the results match her with a stranger. It is clear to Polly that this match is a mistake, but still she cannot help but comb through her family history for answers. Then, when it seems that the book club circle of four will become three, Polly learns how friendships can change your life in the most profound ways.” (Amazon) About mid-way through this one, I thought, well, I want to find out what happens, but I am not that into this one. And, then in the back 20%, I really began to enjoy it. Overall, it was a good read, but very slow in the middle.

Happy Memorial Day – the weekend I publish my summer reading recommendations and my own list for summer reading.

I have already posted my choices for good summer reads that I have vetted. This post covers those I am looking forward to biting off myself.

Let me know if you have read and enjoyed or hated any of them. They will be packed in my beach bag…

As I do each year, I have listed here my favorites for the first six months of the year so you can easily find them to take to the beach. 2026 brought nine 5-star books and ten 4.5-star choices.

I will post another list of those I am reading this summer – who knows if they are going to be good or not…happy summer, everyone!

5-star

4.5-star

Links to read my past summer blog posts below.

2025’s summer books are here.
2024’s summer books are here.
2023’s summer books are here.
2022’s summer books are here.
2021’s summer books are here.
2020’s summer books are here.
2019’s summer books are here.
2018’s summer books are here.
2017’s summer books are here.

Bug Hollow by Michelle Huneven was recommended by a dear friend. And, what a great recommendation is was. Amazon: “When Sally Samuelson was eight years old, her golden boy brother, Ellis, went missing the summer he graduated from high school. Ellis finally turned up at the bucolic Bug Hollow, a last gasp of the beautiful Northern California counterculture of the seventies. He had found joy in the communal life there, but died in a freak accident weeks later. From that point, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis, especially after Julia, Ellis’s girlfriend from Bug Hollow, shows up pregnant on their doorstep. Each Samuelson has sought their own solace: Sybil Samuelson pours herself into teaching and numbing her pain after the loss of her beloved son; her husband, Phil, had found respite in a love that developed while he was working as an engineer in Saudi Arabia; Katie, the high-achieving middle Samuelson, comes home to try and make peace with her mother after a cancer diagnosis. And Sally has become the de facto caretaker to Eva, the child Ellis never knew.” This was a great read and old enough that it’s easy to find at the library. Put it in your beach bag for the summer!