How timely! The Lynn University newsletter just published a recommended reading list:
Librarian Offers Up List of Top 10 Beach Books
List runs from Grisham to Gilbert; Harry Potter to 'Beautiful Boy'
Published Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:45 pm
by Jason Hughes
Susan Montgomery, an avid book reader and Lynn Library's circulation desk manager, has devised a top 10 list of this summer's must-read books.
"Working in a library has many perks - one is meeting other book lovers," said Montgomery. "I often have the opportunity to talk with patrons about their choices. Recently, these books have been hot topics at Lynn Library."
Using book selections from Lynn's book club, personal preferences and research, Montgomery's list covers a variety of genres from fantasy and romance to travel and history.
Montgomery's top 10 summer reading list includes:
1. "Eat, Pray, Love: One woman's search for everything across Italy, India, Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert - a romantic, fictitious travelogue of a recently divorced woman who divides her year among three dissimilar countries
2. "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America" by Erik Larson - a novel centered around events from the infamous 1893 Chicago World's Fair
3. "The Appeal" by John Grisham - Grisham's thirteenth legal thriller surrounding the story of a small Mississippi law firm who wins a big verdict over a chemical giant, Krane
4. "A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail" by Bill Bryson - Bryson serves as a tour guide, taking readers through the history and ecology of the Appalachian Trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine and introducing them to the people and bears he encounters on the trail
5. "In the Time of Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez - a novel about courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship
6. "Change of Heart" by Jodi Piccoult - a novel that examines a condemned inmate's desire to be an organ donor
7. "Water for Elephants: A Novel" by Sara Gruen - a novel, set in the early years of the Great Depression and centered around a young boy, now 90 years old, who grew up in the circus
8. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by JK Rowling - this is book seven, the conclusion to Rowling's renowned Harry Potter series
9. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini - author of the New York Times bestseller "The Kite Runner," Hosseini records 30 years of Afghan history in a story of family, friendship, faith and the salvation to be found in love
10. "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction" by David Sheff - a novel depicting a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view
My particular favorite is "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, my nomination for the Great American Novel.