Collection Management Librarians Andrea, Dontaná, and Kathy
Get a jump on your summer reading with these sizzling summer titles we think will be hot, hot, hot all summer. Place your hold today! And don’t forget to register and track your reading for adult summer reading. Sign up and start tracking now »
Fiction
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
Publication date: May 23
Why you should try it: The Booker Prize finalist (Real Life) is back with a book that Oprah calls “erudite, intimate, hilarious, [and] poignant."
Description: During a volatile year of self-discovery in the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, three friends, as each prepares for an uncertain future, head to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.
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Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig
Publication date: May 30
Why you should try it: Pirates are having a resurgence of popularity among adults, and rightfully so. But most pirates were men, and this one is about a Pirate Queen.
Description: A legendary Chinese pirate queen fights to save her fleet from the forces allied against them and learns the dangerous price of power.
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I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore
Expected publication date: June 20
Why you should try it: Definitely a heavier choice for the summer, but this is Ann Patchett’s most anticipated book of the year. (And we know how much Oak Parkers love Ann Patchett!)
Description: A teacher visits his dying brother in the Bronx and gets swept into a mystery involving a journal from the 19th century stolen from a boarding house. A daring, meditative exploration of love and death, passion and grief, and what it means to be haunted by the past, both by history and the human heart.
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Banyan Moon by Thao Thai
Expected publication date: June 27
Why you should try it: A "stand out" sweeping family saga that is sure to be one of the best books of the summer (Publishers Weekly).
Description: Follows three generations of Vietnamese American women reeling from the death of their matriarch, revealing the family's inherited burdens, buried secrets, and unlikely love stories.
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Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen
Expected publication date: July 4
Why you should try it: This story of family and culture takes place in and around a nail shop, an uncommon setting for a book but a staple location in beauty routines the world over.
Description: When an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street from their family nail salon, Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran devise some good old-fashioned sabotage, but when the line between right and wrong gets blurred, they must choose between keeping their family together or fighting for their salon.
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Burn the Negative by Josh Winning
Expected publication date: July 11
Why you should try it: Horror fans rejoice. This slasher film novel is perfect for fans of the movie X, and the authors Grady Hendrix and Stephen Graham Jones.
Description: A journalist reporting on the remake of a notorious 1990s slasher flick—in which eight cast and crew died in ways that eerily mirrored the on-screen deaths—begins experiencing strange, disturbing events and attempts to finally end the curse.
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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
Expected publication date: August 1
Why you should try it: If you don’t know Acevedo from her award-winning YA titles like The Poet X and Clap When You Land, her adult debut guarantees you are going to know her now.
Description: Told through the voices of its women, a Dominican-American family awaits a gathering that will forever change their lives.
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Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
Expected publication date: August 9
Why you should try it: A gothic thriller set in 1840s Mexico with vampires? Yes, please! (Also a great choice if you loved Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.)
Description: Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western.
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Nonfiction
Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby
Publication date: May 16
Why you should try it: Samantha Irby is perfect summer reading. Her essays range from thoughtful to trashy, but they will always make you laugh.
Description: The success of Irby's career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had.
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Pageboy by Elliot Page
Expected publication date: June 6
Why you should try it: It's one of the most anticipated memoirs of the year!
Description: With the movie Juno's massive success, Elliot became one of the world's most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough.
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The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved & Sold to Build the American Catholic Church by Rachel L. Swarns
Expected publication date: June 13
Why you should try it: If history is your jam, this is THE book of the summer—arduously researched with excellent use of archival material.
Description: On Juneteenth in 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the U.S.
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Wannabe: Reckonings With the Pop Culture That Shapes Me by Aisha Harris
Expected publication date: June 13
Why you should try it: Host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, Harris’s astute observations have earned her the distinction of a “first-rate cultural critic” (Publishers Weekly).
Description: Aisha Harris has made a name for herself as someone you can turn to for a razor-sharp take on whatever show or movie everyone is talking about. Now, she turns her talents inward, mining the benchmarks of her nineties childhood and beyond to analyze the tropes that are shaping all of us, and our ability to shape them right back.
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Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper
Expected publication date: June 13
Why you should try it: Go beyond the Central Park birder viral video and check out this book that Pulitzer Prize winning author Ed Yong (An Immense World) called “wondrous” and “captivating,” and then go find some cool birds.
Description: When a routine encounter with a dog walker escalates age-old racial tensions, Cooper's viral video of the incident would send shockwaves through the nation. In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous encounter in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in American today.
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The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime & a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel
Expected publication date: June 27
Why you should try it: Who doesn’t love a good art heist story? But have you heard the story of Staephane Breitwieser who stole a work of art every dozen or so days, amassing a collection of over 300 items?
Description: For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Staephane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly 10 years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
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Beyond the Story by BTS
Expected publication date: July 9
Why you should try it: The buzziest of buzzy books! Taking bets now if it will outdo Spare by Prince Harry.
Description: This book is so secret and so hot that there is no description; it's just BTS.
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Baking Yesteryear: The Best Recipes From the 1900s to the 1980s by B. Dylan Hollis
Expected publication date: July 25
Why you should try it: Porkbelly fruitcake, Tang Cookies, Vinegar Pie, oh my! Join social media personality B. Dylan Hollis on a silly and delicious (usually) tour of cooking through history.
Description: Friends of baking, are you sick and tired of making the same recipes again and again? Then look no further than this baking blast from the past, as B. Dylan Hollis highlights the most unique tasty treats of yesteryear.
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Arguing for a Better World: How Philosophy Can Help Us Fight for Social Justice by Arianne Shahvisi
Expected publication date: July 25
Why you should try it: Feeling overwhelmed lately? Let Arianne Shahvisi inspire you by working through moral questions and personal assumptions. Really!
Description: Arianne Shahvisi shows us how to work through thorny moral questions by examining their parts in broad daylight, equipping us to not only identify our own positions but to defend them as well. This book demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our everyday lives and offers some clear-eyed tools to those who want to learn how to better fight for justice and liberation for all.
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Movies & TV Shows
Creed III
Release date: May 23
Why you should try it: The Creed franchise has had such box-office success! This is perfect for those of us who love the idea of boxing but would rather live vicariously through Adonis Creed’s success.
Description: After dominating the boxing world, Adonis Creed has been thriving in both his career and family life. When a childhood friend and former boxing prodigy, Damian, resurfaces after serving a long sentence in prison, he is eager to prove that he deserves his shot in the ring. The face-off between former friends is more than just a fight. To settle the score, Adonis must put his future on the line to battle Damian, a fighter who has nothing to lose.
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The Quiet Girl
Release date: May 23
Why you should try it: The Academy Award season is over (for now) but nominated titles are still trickling out on DVD. See for yourself why The Quiet Girl was nominated for Best International Feature Film.
Description: Rural Ireland 1981. A quiet, neglected girl is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. She blossoms in their care, but in this house where there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Release date: May 30
Why you should try it: Whether you’re a fan of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) or you have no clue about the franchise, this film has something for everyone. A great cast selection going on an adventure to D&D easter eggs there is something for everyone to enjoy.
Description: A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers embark on an epic quest to recover a lost relic, but things go perilously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.
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John Wick: Chapter 4
Expected release date: June 13
Why you should try it: It’s hard to believe that this series is only 9 years old and it is jam-packed with so much action! The new John Wick movie continues the legacy of the previous movies.
Description: John Wick uncovers a trail to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful associations across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.
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The Last of Us: Season One
Expected release date: July 18
Why you should try it: Rarely does HBO release TV series on DVD and let alone one so quickly after the season finale. It’s even more rare for a video game to turn into a successful TV series. This show will keep you on the edge of your seat, break your heart, and ruin mushrooms!
Description: In 2003, a parasitic fungal infection ravages the planet, turning humans into violent creatures known as the Infected. Twenty years later, hardened survivor Joel is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of an oppressive quarantine zone in hopes of delivering her to the rebel Fireflies. But what should be a quick job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey as they traverse the desolate U.S. while depending on each other's unique skills for survival.
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About Andrea
Collection Management Librarian Andrea is an avid audiobook and manga reader. When she isn't chipping away at her reading list, she's attending local pop culture conventions.
About Dontaná
Dontaná is a Collection Management Librarian who was born with an unending reading list. She is almost always reading two books simultaneously and is easily distracted by cool covers.
About Kathy
Kathy is a Collection Management Librarian who loves reading, sharing, and talking about books. Her missions in life are to: create communities of readers, convince folks that her official title should be "Book Pusher," and refute that "disco" is a dirty word.
