Summer is just around the corner — that blissful time of year when you can kick back in the sun and get lost in the books you've been meaning to read for months. Whether you're searching for an easy read for the beach, or a more thought-provoking novel to discuss with your friends, we've rounded up 22 different books to keep you reading all summer long.
Do you have a perfect summer read already picked out? Let us know in the comments below.
Highly-Anticipated New Releases
Each of these authors previously published bestsellers, and we've been waiting for their newest works for years.
1. And the Mountains Echoed
Author: Khaled Hosseini
"Khaled Housseini has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most." Amazon Book Description
2. This is How You Lose Her
Author: Junot Díaz
The famed author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" has returned with a short novel about "the haunting, impossible power of love –- obsessive love, illicit love, fading love, maternal love... in prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that 'the half-life of love is forever.'” Amazon Book Description
3. The Burgess Boys
Author: Elizabeth Strout
"Living beneath a shadow of loss and blame around their father's death when they were small children, Jim and Bob escaped their home state of Maine for New York as soon as they possibly could. Yet ties to home and family supersede their desire to break free. This tension drives the novel as the brothers grapple with their relationship, their midlife identities and a rising family crisis." OregonLive.com Book Review
4. The Interestings
Author: Meg Wolitzer
"The main characters in Meg Wolitzer’s complex and engaging new novel, “The Interestings,” were born in 1959 (as was Wolitzer). They’re members of that shadow generation, not old enough to have participated fully in the dramatic events that dominated their childhoods. Wolitzer explores sex, love, marriage, parenthood, friendship, money, class, art, youth, and age through the lives of a handful of people who belong to the last of that generation whose members feared, above all, being dull." The Boston Globe
5. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Author: Neil Gaiman
"There’s an almost epic sense of proportions in this novel, a tragic good verses evil story fought on the tiniest level, and it succeeds in the most heartbreaking way... 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' is a powerful, masterful work of fiction, one that resonates long after the last page has been turned and the book put away on the shelf. Quite simply, this short, incredible novel is one of the best of the year, and is not to be missed." GeekExchange.com
Casual Beach Reads
If you're looking for a book you won't be able to put down, choose one of these engaging beach reads to take on your next vacation.
1. State of Wonder
Author: Ann Patchett
"Ann Patchett returns with a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotional urgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels 'Bel Canto', and 'The Patron Saint of Liars', Patchett delivers an enthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in 'State of Wonder' — a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love." Amazon Book Description
2. Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
Author: Maria Semple
"Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence — creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world." Amazon Book Description
3. The Art of Fielding
Author: Chad Harbach
"It's a baseball novel, meaning it's a novel from which one can extrapolate about all life on earth. It's a college novel and thus a coming of age novel. It's a novel about families, by birth and by life-choices, and a novel about how to live, how to love and how to die. It's a novel about how to read and how to write, and it's all in all the most delightful and serious first book of fiction that I have read in a while... The loves, friendships, duties and betrayals, both of self and others, drive a clear and appealing plot." Chicago Tribune
4. Beautiful Ruins
Author: Jess Walter
"'Beautiful Ruins' is a glorious read for book lovers. From the moment you pick up the novel, it conjures a world that you long to enter. The teal-blue Ligurian Sea laps against a jagged coastline filled with candy-colored houses and open windows. At first glance, you’re dying to get inside those houses and find out what’s going on... It’s all here, the illusion and reality, the joy and the shame of the creative life, of life itself." Adriana Trigiani, Amazon Book Reviews
5. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
Author: Chelsea Handler
"In this highly entertaining, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she’s convincing her third-grade class that she has been chosen to play Goldie Hawn’s daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her...only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations."Amazon Book Description
6. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Author: Robin Sloan
"A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life — mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore... 'Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore' is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to give a jolt of energy to every curious reader, no matter the time of day." Amazon Book Description
7. The Devil in the White City
Author: Erik Larson
"Erik Larson — author of #1 bestseller 'In the Garden of Beasts' — intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction." Amazon Book Description
Deep Dives
There's no accomplishment quite like finishing a thick, imposing novel. If you're looking for an intellectual but engrossing challenge, pick one of these 800+ page books — they're worth the time investment.
1. Shantaram
Author: Gregory David Roberts
"'It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.' So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—-this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature." Amazon Book Description
2. 1Q84
Author: Haruki Murakami
"The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84. Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s — 1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers." Amazon Book Description
3. The Pillars of the Earth
Author: Ken Follett
"Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action and passionate romance. But what makes 'The Pillars of the Earth' extraordinary is the time — the twelfth century; the place — feudal England; and the subject — the building of a glorious cathedral. The building of the cathedral, with the almost eerie artistry of the unschooled stonemasons, is the center of the drama. Around the site of the construction, Follett weaves a story of betrayal, revenge, and love, which begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king." So Many Books, So Little Time
4. Infinite Jest
Author: David Foster Wallace
"A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the pursuit of happiness in America. Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, 'Infinite Jest' explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. " Amazon Book Description
5. The Instructions
Author: Adam Levin
"Beginning with a chance encounter with the beautiful Eliza June Watermark and ending, four days and 900 pages later, with the Events of November 17, this is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age ten: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Ejected from three Jewish day schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity." Amazon Book Description
Mysteries and Thrillers
If you're more of a thrill-seeker, and you live for those chills that run up your arms — pick up one of these novels sure to make your pulse race.
1. The Shadow of the Wind
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafrón
"Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled 'The Shadow of the Wind', by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets — an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love." Amazon Book Description
2. Follow Her Home
Author: Steph Cha
"Juniper Song knows secrets — how to keep them and how to search them out. But when she's knocked out while investigating a mysterious car and finds a body in her own trunk, Song lurches back to the real L.A., becoming embroiled in a crime that goes far beyond role play. A dazzling debut from fresh new talent Steph Cha, featuring a strong, modern, sharply observant heroine with an unforgettable voice, 'Follow Her Home' takes readers through dangerous twists and turns, beyond the glittering high-rises and freeways of L.A. on a case that will stay with them long after the final page." Amazon Book Review
3. City of Thieves
Author: David Benioff
"During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, 'City of Thieves' is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men." Amazon Book Review
4. World War Z
Author: Max Brooks
"The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. Never before have we had access to a document that conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years." Amazon Book Description
5. The Meaning of Night
Author: Michael Cox
"As a young boy, Glyver always believed he was destined for greatness. A chance discovery convinces him that he was right: greatness does await him, along with immense wealth and influence. Overwhelmed by his discovery, he will stop at nothing to win back a prize that he knows is rightfully his. His is a story of betrayal and treachery, of death and delusion, of ruthless obsession and ambition. 'The Meaning of Night' is an enthralling novel that will captivate readers right up to its final thrilling revelation." Amazon Book Review
Image via iStockphoto, Antclausen
Books for Your Ultimate Summer Reading List
Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4
On Tuesday Microsoft announced the Xbox One, the next generation of its popular gaming console. The announcement came roughly three months after Sony announced its own next-generation console, the PlayStation 4.
So, how do the two stand up against each other?
Ralph Cifra, a visual artist from the Philippines, created this infographic comparing the two unreleased consoles side-by-side. One key difference you’ll notice as you scroll down: We know a lot more about the Xbox One at this point than we do about the PlayStation 4.
Take a look at the side-by-side comparison below.
By Emily Price Graphics courtesy Microsoft, Sony; composite by Charlie White/Mashable; infographic courtesy Ralph Cifra
14-Year-Old Girl Destroys Van Halen Guitar Solo
Here's a video of Tina, 14, covering Eddie Van Halen‘s “Eruption” guitar solo and absolutely shredding it.
If the words “Eddie Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’ guitar solo” have no meaning to you, we'll get to the meat of the story: This girl is some sort of guitar wizard.
Rebecca Pahle for The Mary Sue
Orchestra Plays 'Carmen' Entirely on Mobile Devices
Fans booed when Bob Dylan went electric in 1965, but in 2013 in the Czech Republic no one seemed to bat an eye when the Czech National Symphony Orchestra one-upped Dylan by also going mobile.
As part of a stunt to promote a new "all-digital" bank in Europe called Hello Bank!, BNP Paribas and ad agency B-Roll wired up 60 musicians with smartphones and tablets for a rousing rendition of "Carmen." According to a behind-the-scenes video, the effort required 227 different interfaces that were hooked up to Wi-Fi.
The point: You and your mobile device can make beautiful music together. Or something.
By Todd Wasserman
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