- http://www.npr.org/2013/06/04/187601740/start-storing-up-indie-booksellers-pick-summers-best-reads
- Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (recommended by Paul Murray)
- Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (recommended by Roxane Gay)
- Dare Me by Megan Abbot (recommended by Roxane Gay)
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393337200/ref=nosim/themillions-20
- Salvage the Bones by Jesamyn Ward http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1608196267/ref=nosim/themillions-20
- The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn
- Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
- Maus by Art Spiegelman
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Suddenly, A Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret
- Green Wheat by Collette
- The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
- Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (http://carolrifkabrunt.com/2.html)
- The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
- England, England by Julian Barnes: "In college, one of my mistakes was taking a class on comparative literature, after which I was left thinking that Britain or America could never produce a homegrown “national allegory.” Was I ever wrong! England’s image of itself is grist for this bizarre novel of ideas in which the nation is reassembled as a giant theme park for tourists—with a false king and queen and every famous Briton brought back to life. The novel questions the value of history and of myth—and despite its scorched-earth ending and brilliant dissection of the corporate profit motive, it does so with a bit of affection."
- Mating by Norman Rush: "One of the prerequisites for reading Mating is indulgent friends. They might block you on gchat and mark your e-mail address temporarily as spam. You will never so thoroughly underline a book or force more quotations on loved ones. The unnamed anthropologist at the center of the novel is a flattering, if sometimes incorrect, model of female subjectivity. Her journey into an experimental Utopian community in Botswana — and her love affair with its leader — inspires rigorous introspection. Norman Rush will get you out of a reading rut, teach you more vocabulary than Eldridge Cleaver, and show you what it really means to intellectualize your emotions. Seriously! It's as good as Moby Dick and Anna Karenina."
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers: "When I first read Carson McCullers’ "tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s," I was incredulous of a 23 year old writing something so brilliant and moving. But, looking back now on the novel 10 years later, it makes sense that someone that young would write about anger and idealism and passion with the confidence that she did. As we age, our idealism tends to become a shell of what it once was, and this book is one of our best reminders that it’s a tragedy to give up on our passion, no matter how bewildering it may be to express."
- The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams: "A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000, Joy Williams’s The Quick and the Dead centers on a pivotal summer in the lives of three motherless teen girls living in the American Southwest: eco-terrorist Alice, increasingly catatonic Corvus, and beauty-obsessed Annabel. As the story expands, it is increasingly populated by an eccentric cast of characters who orbit around each other in a state of limbo as Williams uses her tricky prose to sort the living from the deceased. Her language reflects the character of the novel’s desert landscape, her hard-boiled words both merciless and stunning."
- Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey: "Sleeper pick for the great American novel. It's about educated elite versus the working class,the taming of the west, self-determination, the merits and pitfalls collective bargaining, shattered dreams, natural disasters, infidelity, and the relationships between fathers and sons and husbands and wives. (Gatsby is about what? A super rich guy and a car accident?) More importantly, it's the book for ever plaid-wearing, faux-outdoorsmen type who went to a good school and couldn't actually chop down a tree with your decorative axe (that is me, and most everyone I know). Because it's partially about what happens when you're required to chop down that tree anyway, which is a moment of which I think many of us live in both horror and awesome anticipation."
- The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll: "This book is just bizarre which is probably why I like it so much. It also has the best character name ever: Saxony Gardner. This is the novel I keep coming back to. It's like a mix of David Lynch and Roald Dahl. The main character refers to his father's Oscar winning film as Cancer House. The book is darkly funny and made me want to read every scrap Carroll's ever written. His imagination is so good it makes me angry."
- The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy: "The Dud Avocado is a whip-smart little gem of a book, one that I've read three times in the few months since I've finished it. Sally Jay is young and silly and tricky. I relate to her almost selfishly: I hate knowing that other people will read thus book and see themselves (flighty, sarcastic, anxious) reflected from line to line. I'd like to believe that Sally Jay and I are kindred spirits, and that everyone else is just pretending to know what it's like to be us."
- The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
- The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
- Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
jun 13 2011 ∞
jun 26 2013 +
jun 26 2013 +