Skip to content

Top Navigation

Southern Living Southern Living
  • Food
  • Holidays & Entertaining
  • Home & Garden
  • Style & Culture
  • News
  • Video

Profile Menu

Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Logout

More

  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living Books this link opens in a new tab
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Southern Living

Southern Living Southern Living
  • Explore

    Explore

    • The Most Popular Hairstyles of 2021

      The Most Popular Hairstyles of 2021

      The trendy haircuts you’ll be seeing everywhere this year. Read More
    • How To Season A Cast-Iron Skillet

      How To Season A Cast-Iron Skillet

      Learn how to season this Southern kitchen staple in five easy steps. Read More
    • The Right Way to Heat a Pre-Cooked Ham

      The Right Way to Heat a Pre-Cooked Ham

      It's so easy, trust us. Read More
  • Food

    Food

    See All Food
    How Long Do Deviled Eggs Last in the Fridge?

    How Long Do Deviled Eggs Last in the Fridge?

    Best practices for dealing with deviled eggs
    • All Food
    • All Recipes
    • Holidays & Occasions
    • Quick Fix Suppers
    • Slow Cooker Recipes
    • Desserts
    • Casseroles
    • Healthy Recipes
  • Holidays & Entertaining

    Holidays & Entertaining

    See All Holidays & Entertaining
    70 Wedding Vow Examples That Will Melt Your Heart

    70 Wedding Vow Examples That Will Melt Your Heart

    Fight writer's block and find ways to express your love with these romantic, funny, and short wedding vow examples.
    • Christmas
    • Entertaining
    • Thanksgiving
    • Southern Weddings
    • Easter
    • Kentucky Derby
    • Valentine's Day
    • 4th of July
    • Mother's Day
  • Home & Garden

    Home & Garden

    See All Home & Garden
    30 Containers for Covered Porches That Will Thrive in the Shade

    30 Containers for Covered Porches That Will Thrive in the Shade

    Some containers have all the sun. These shady planters, though, are having plenty of fun sans sun. We’ve gathered all of our favorite shade-loving containers to inspire your planting this season. If you have a shady yard or want to perk up a shaded spot in your home, at your front door, on your porch, or around your patio, put together a pretty shade-loving container that’s also easy to care for. Plants like caladiums and creeping Jenny will thrive in the shade, and they’ll also add great color and movement to your planters. If you’re looking for the best plants for the shade and great flowers that thrive in shade, also reach for impatiens, coleus, sweet potato vines, mazus, vincas, torenias, violas, petunias, pansies, hellebores (Lenten roses), hostas, astilbes, and trilliums. They look great and will thrive in full to partial shade. Shade-loving flowers aren’t too hard to find. Ask around at your local garden store, and you’ll be able to locate the ingredients and put together any one of these shade-tolerant container ideas. Also, in regards to your container, don’t forget to think vertical. We love pots and planters, but a hanging basket is another great option, as is an elevated planter, which will make a statement and take advantage of any vertical space.
    • Home Decor Ideas
    • Idea Houses
    • Before & After
    • Inspired Communities
    • Curb Appeal
    • House Plans & Builders
    • The Grumpy Gardener
    • Plant Names A-Z
  • Style & Culture

    Style & Culture

    See All Style & Culture
    70 Cute and Funny Nicknames For Your Best Friends

    70 Cute and Funny Nicknames For Your Best Friends

    Let your besties know how much they mean to you with these unique nicknames.
    • Southern Culture
    • Hair
    • Travel
    • Beauty
    • Pets
    • Southern Fashion
    • Healthy Living
  • News
  • Video

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Logout

More

  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living Books this link opens in a new tab
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

LIVE
  1. Southern Living
  2. Southern Culture
  3. These Are the Books All Your Friends Are Reading This Summer

These Are the Books All Your Friends Are Reading This Summer

By Caroline Rogers
July 25, 2017
Each product we feature has been independently selected and reviewed by our editorial team. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.
Skip gallery slides
Save FB Tweet
These Are the Books All Your Friends Are Reading This Summer
Credit: KOICHI SAITO/Getty Images
There’s nothing like a good book in the summertime. Plenty of long days and leisurely vacations mean that summertime is, undoubtedly, reading time. We’ve rounded up all the popular new releases your friends are sure to be reading this summer. These books come highly recommended, and they span the genres. In this list, you’ll find thrillers, literary fiction, and a few engaging non-fiction picks too. These books are can’t-miss powerhouses, stories that will move you, thrill you, and keep you engrossed until the very last page. Add these titles to your reading list, and grab a few friends to start a book club. We have plenty of picks to stock your book club reading list for the next few months—maybe even the next few years. (No pressure, though. Just start with one or two.) So do a little browsing. Find something that speaks to you—whether it’s an author, a cover, or a synopsis—and get to reading. Once you start reading, you’ll also find yourself conversing. You’re almost certain to find that your friends are reading these new titles too. It couldn’t be truer: If there’s one thing better than finishing a great book, it’s reading it with friends.
Start Slideshow

1 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

What We Lose: A Novel by Zinzi Clemmons

What We Lose: A Novel by Zinzi Clemmons
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $22, amazon.com

Book lovers across the country are hungrily devouring this highly anticipated release, the debut novel from Zinzi Clemmons. Through luminous prose, What We Lose delves into the world of one woman, Thandi, who struggles with love, loss, and identity after losing her mother to cancer.

1 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Jenny Zhang’s highly anticipated debut collection casts a shining new light on the immigrant experience in America. Her narrators, Chinese-American daughters of immigrants, illuminate and expound, describing precisely the fleeting feelings of confounding adolescence.

2 of 41

3 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick

The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25.99, amazon.com

The author of The Silver Linings Playbook is back with a vibrant and engaging novel about a Vietnam War vet who wakes up from surgery with a mission. As he tracks down a figure from his past, he grapples with his present, painting a picture of a person—and a country—torn and tumbling, but also hopeful and resilient.

3 of 41

Advertisement

4 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Critics have called this book addictive, funny, and a sprawling epic. It follows Selin, a Harvard-bound daughter of Turkish immigrants as she navigates her freshman year in the mid-90s. Email, the new form of correspondence taking the decade by storm, opens Selin’s intellectual and emotional worlds, and reveals to readers the mysteries of writing, relationships, and selfhood.

4 of 41

5 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee

Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $16, amazon.com

A young woman from Boston finds herself in Florence, Italy, searching for meaning and healing in a landscape far from home. She joins a rowing club and becomes entangled in the local life of the city and the people she meets there.

5 of 41

6 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris

The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Don’t have time to dive into a novel? Try short stories instead. Ferris’ first collection offers eleven entertaining stories (some of which you may have already seen in The New Yorker) that are at turns arresting and hilarious. Ferris excavates relationships, interactions, missteps, and misunderstandings to form a collection of work you’ll want to return to again and again.

6 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

When the English Fall: A Novel by David Williams

When the English Fall: A Novel by David Williams
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $24.95, amazon.com

When civilization collapses, can a Pennsylvania Amish community survive? Earth is utterly transformed after a solar storm, leaving a peaceful community in danger as an external threat encroaches ever more violently.

7 of 41

8 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com

Learn the untold true story of the radium girls, women who worked in the WWI-era radium-dial factories after the Curies’ discovery of the element, and whose perseverance in the face of danger and dire sickness led to unprecedented regulations and research in the field.

8 of 41

9 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh

Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Moshfegh has oft been compared to Flannery O’Connor—it’s a bold claim, but we don’t disagree. Both writers have produced short stories that electrify and astound. These stories are clear-eyed and easy to savor. They’re filled with language that mingles beauty and danger with razor-sharp precision.

9 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25, amazon.com

When Nina Riggs was diagnosed with terminal cancer, her life changed in ways she couldn’t imagine. Her memoir, The Bright Hour, examines with humor and heart her life, her legacy, her relationships, and her utterly moving experience of living “with death in the room.”

10 of 41

11 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com

The New York Times review effuses, "A novel of almost insolent ambition—lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate […] It's part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable.” It’s a transportive 19th-century tale with a winning heroine and a mythical serpent—of course, a must-read this summer.

11 of 41

12 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Isadora: A Novel by Amelia Gray

Isadora by Amelia Gray
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Amelia Gray’s debut novel offers readers a glittering, imaginative glimpse into the life of the captivating, early-20th-century dancer Isadora Duncan, a life that was, at turns, artistic, eccentric, tragic, and a magnet for gossip.

12 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

13 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Idaho by Emily Ruskovich

Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Idaho is O. Henry Prize-winning author Emily Ruskovich’s debut novel. It’s the story of Ann and Wade, a couple living in northern Idaho, whose life together is the result of a splintering disaster that left Wade’s first wife, Jenny, in prison. Told from multiple perspectives, this books delves into their converging lives, and Ann’s imagination comes alive as she attempts to understand her husband’s past.

13 of 41

14 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

A Separation by Katie Kitamura

A Separation by Katie Kitamura
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25, amazon.com

This novel begins with a separation. A husband and wife diverge, beginning new lives and starting over. That process is arrested when the husband goes missing in Greece and the woman from whom he’s separated goes to find him.

14 of 41

15 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $28, amazon.com

When we say all your friends are reading this novel this summer, we mean all your friends are reading it. As the follow-up to the best-selling, film-adapted The Girl on the Train, Hawkins’ new book, Into the Water, promises the same style of thrilling, pulse-pounding mystery.

15 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

16 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Hue, 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden

Hue, 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $30, amazon.com

Mark Bowden returns to his research of the Vietnam War withHue, 1968, his first book of the kind since Black Hawk Down. Immerse yourself in multiple perspectives of the war’s dramatic and tragic Battle of Hue, a pivotal moment in the conflict.

16 of 41

17 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Modern Gods by Nick Laird

Modern Gods by Nick Laird
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Novelist and poet Nick Laird makes another stunning foray into the novel form with Modern Gods, a story about Irish sisters Liz and Alison whose very different lives interweave, withdraw, and struggle against the past.

17 of 41

18 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Signal Flame: A Novel by Andrew Krivak

The Signal Flame: A Novel by Andrew Krivak
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Andrew Krivak’s 2011 book The Sojurn was a National Book Award Finalist, and he’s out with a moving follow-up this year. Set in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains and beginning at Easter in 1972, this is the story of one family waiting—waiting for news of their youngest son, who is thought to be missing in action in Vietnam.

18 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

19 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

The reader becomes the detective in this mysterious volume, a story about a bookshop, a suicide, and the store clerk who must unravel the mystery dealt her—while also navigating the painful childhood memories that arise in the meantime.

19 of 41

20 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

From the author of Room comes a thrilling novel about faith, belief, and the sinister side of mystery. It’s about the people surrounding eleven-year-old Anna O’Donnell, and the girl herself, the wonder whom people flock to behold, who hasn’t eaten in months because she believes she is living off manna from heaven.

20 of 41

21 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah

What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Arimah’s debut short story collection will captivate you, move you, and make you think. Don’t miss “Who Will Greet You at Home” (a critical favorite published in The New Yorker ), “Wild,” or “The Future Looks Good.” Once you pick it up, we have a feeling you won’t be able to put down this volume until you've read it cover to cover.

21 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

22 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $15, amazon.com

Dive into this clever and moving collection of essays by writer and critic Durga Chew-Bose. These essays examine artistic growth and creative expression spurred on and inspired by female authors. With spot-on prose and sparkling poetic sensibilities to spare, you'll find that the only downside is the length of the collection. (You'll wish it were much longer.)

22 of 41

23 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy

We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Read this novel to be transported to Seven Island. Two families inhabit Seven Island: the Hillsingers and the Quicks. Problems occupy both the adults and the children as they traverse the island, which is teeming with troubles they make and must navigate themselves.

23 of 41

24 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin

Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Much like the titular flaneuse, this book is difficult to pin down. It’s part cultural criticism and part memoir. It traverses the globe, all the while examining the cities in which the writer, Elkin, has lived and delving into the lives of historical figures such as the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn and the writer Jean Rhys, who have also inhabited those cities.

24 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

25 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Trajectory: Stories by Richard Russo

Trajectory: Stories by Richard Russo
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25.95, amazon.com

Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo returns with a collection of compact stories that are panoramic in scope, stories of conflict, cons, and complications that artfully span season and geography. For more Russo, read his novels Everybody’s Fool and Empire Falls.

25 of 41

26 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Richard Russo describes the plot of this book as “A father-daughter road trip you won’t soon forget.” The father in question, Samuel Hawley, lives on the run and raises his teenage daughter, Loo, along the way. Finally stopping in her late mother’s hometown, Loo starts searching for clues to the mother she never got to meet.

26 of 41

27 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg

A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $22, amazon.com

Recently re-released in a newly illustrated form, Hallberg’s novella predates City on Fire, his acclaimed 2015 release chronicling New York lives during the 1970s. Composed of 63 entries, Field Guide illustrates the lives of two fictional families.

27 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

28 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Futures by Anna Pitoniak

The Futures by Anna Pitoniak
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Evan and Julia embark on the life they’d imagined in New York—Evan at a hedge fund and Julia at a nonprofit—but with the financial crisis of 2008 looming, the couple’s lives and hopes begin to diverge.

28 of 41

29 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro

The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26.99, amazon.com

During the summer of 1992, gypsy moths invade Avalon Island, a community in which old families meet new, insiders and outsiders collide, and relationships begin to blossom. However, all is not well, as sinister forces are also at work on the island.

29 of 41

30 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories by Penelope Lively

The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories by Penelope Lively
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25, amazon.com

Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively has crafted a captivating collection of stories that is packed with immersive detail and is, unquestionably, supremely entertaining. Read more of Lively’s work in The Photograph and How It All Began.

30 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

31 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $32.50, amazon.com

On March 3, 1947, Archibald Isaac Ferguson is born. This novel follows the four paths of his life, four fictional, parallel roads down which the four versions of Ferguson travel. They are four different-but-identical Fergusons, all coming of age, learning, leaping, stumbling — and all falling in love with one Amy Schneiderman.

31 of 41

32 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Need a recommendation? Ask Ann Patchett. She calls this book "smart and thrilling and impossible to put down...the book that every reader longs for.” This book begins with two families on a holiday cruise. The fun of the cruise soon disintegrates, spiraling into disaster, and moving farther and farther from safety as the pages turn.

32 of 41

33 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma

Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

This novel follows Andre, a Brazilian teenager, and the movements of his life from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon and, eventually, to London. The complexities of memory across time and place haunt Andre as he matures, leading to a collision that will break open truths he has long kept hidden.

33 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

34 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Magpie Murders: A Novel by Anthony Horowitz

Magpie Murders: A Novel by Anthony Horowitz
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27.99, amazon.com

This puzzling, thrill-inducing whodunit will impress even the most discerning of mystery readers. It tells the tale of a manuscript and its real-life complications when Susan Ryeland, an editor reading the latest draft from her very challenging and ever-successful client, Alan Conway, comes to believe his work is not all fiction.

34 of 41

35 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman

The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27, amazon.com

Love and art come to life in this new novel by National Book Award finalist Allegra Goodman. Read the synopsis, and you’ll be hooked immediately.

35 of 41

36 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid

Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

Amid a dangerous and fractured landscape, Nadia and Saeed meet and fall in love. To escape the rubble of their home, they find a door that will take them away. They step through the threshold and into a new world, a world that will challenge them in ways they could never anticipate.

36 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

37 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $28, amazon.com

This story spans centuries as it tells two tales—one of a scribe in 1660s London and the other of a researcher in the present day attempting to identify a mysterious scribe of long ago. Fans of historical fiction will find much to love in this complex, deeply interwoven novel about books and the people behind them.

37 of 41

38 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak

The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $24, amazon.com

Dip into the 1980s—and the advent of the computer era—with this funny ode to the decade as seen through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin.

38 of 41

39 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes

Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $27.99, amazon.com

Read Hayes' latest to learn about the life of Sarah Vaughan, the jazz singer and Queen of Bebop who was also a pivotal figure in the beginnings of both the 20th-century Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Rights Movement.

39 of 41

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

40 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Leavers: A Novel by Lisa Ko

The Leavers: A Novel by Lisa Ko
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $25.95, amazon.com

Lisa Ko’s debut novel has already left its mark. A powerful story of a missing mother and an adopted son, this novel grapples with separation, assimilation, and the ever-shifting question of belonging in worlds where the ground is shifting constantly underfoot.

40 of 41

41 of 41

Save FB Tweet
Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
Credit: amazon.com

Buy it: $26, amazon.com

The two women at the heart of this novel are separated by many, many years. One is part of the last family of neanderthals, the other is an archaeologist in present day. Both struggle with the experiences of motherhood and womanhood in worlds where diverging expectations abound.

41 of 41

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Caroline Rogers

    Share the Gallery

    Pinterest Facebook
    Trending Videos
    Advertisement
    Skip slide summaries

    Everything in This Slideshow

    Advertisement

    View All

    1 of 41 What We Lose: A Novel by Zinzi Clemmons
    2 of 41 Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang
    3 of 41 The Reason You’re Alive by Matthew Quick
    4 of 41 The Idiot by Elif Batuman
    5 of 41 Florence in Ecstasy by Jessie Chaffee
    6 of 41 The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris
    7 of 41 When the English Fall: A Novel by David Williams
    8 of 41 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
    9 of 41 Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh
    10 of 41 The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
    11 of 41 The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
    12 of 41 Isadora: A Novel by Amelia Gray
    13 of 41 Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
    14 of 41 A Separation by Katie Kitamura
    15 of 41 Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
    16 of 41 Hue, 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden
    17 of 41 Modern Gods by Nick Laird
    18 of 41 The Signal Flame: A Novel by Andrew Krivak
    19 of 41 Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan
    20 of 41 The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
    21 of 41 What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah
    22 of 41 Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose
    23 of 41 We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy
    24 of 41 Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin
    25 of 41 Trajectory: Stories by Richard Russo
    26 of 41 The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
    27 of 41 A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg
    28 of 41 The Futures by Anna Pitoniak
    29 of 41 The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro
    30 of 41 The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories by Penelope Lively
    31 of 41 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
    32 of 41 Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
    33 of 41 Flesh and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma
    34 of 41 Magpie Murders: A Novel by Anthony Horowitz
    35 of 41 The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman
    36 of 41 Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid
    37 of 41 The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
    38 of 41 The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
    39 of 41 Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes
    40 of 41 The Leavers: A Novel by Lisa Ko
    41 of 41 The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron

    Share options

    Pinterest Mail Email iphone Send Text Message Print

    Login

    Southern Living

    Magazines & More

    Learn More

    • About Us
    • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
    • Books from Southern Living
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
    • Sitemap

    Connect

    Follow Us
    Subscribe to Our Newsletter
    Other Meredith Sites

    Other Meredith Sites

    • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
    • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
    • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
    • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
    • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
    • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
    • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
    • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
    • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
    • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
    • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
    • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
    • Health this link opens in a new tab
    • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
    • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
    • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
    • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
    • More this link opens in a new tab
    • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
    • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
    • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
    • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
    • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
    • Parents this link opens in a new tab
    • People this link opens in a new tab
    • People en Español this link opens in a new tab
    • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
    • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
    • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
    • Shape this link opens in a new tab
    • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
    • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
    • Travel & Leisure this link opens in a new tab
    MeredithSouthern Living is part of the Meredith Home Group. © Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. Southern Living is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporationthis link opens in a new tab All Rights Reserved. Southern Living may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
    © Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.southernliving.com

    View image

    These Are the Books All Your Friends Are Reading This Summer
    this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.