Book Buzz: My Summer Reading List

by Jenna Jaco

Reading lists are probably my favorite part of summer. I love filling a post-it (or two) with books I want to read, and slowly crossing the titles off as September approaches. I keep book lists throughout the year, but for some reason my summer reading agenda always seems more imminent and exciting.

This year, my list has a fair amount of variety–while I’m a sucker for high fantasy, I’ve sprinkled in lot of general fiction and YA as well. Here’s a portion of my summer reading list.

The Widow’s House by Daniel Abraham

I’m pretty miffed that more people don’t know about Daniel Abraham. He’s one of my all-time favorite authors. The Widow’s House will make the fourth installment in his most recent fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin, which creates an awesome, realistic world full of messy history, interesting cultures, and complex antagonists. This series also manages to make economics interesting, so there’s that.

And don’t be fooled by the kinda-generic-looking cover art, either–this series smashes fantasy tropes all over the place.

It doesn’t come out until August 5, though, so we’ve got a while to wait.

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

Let not the byline fool you–Abraham’s behind this one, too. James S.A. Corey is the pseudonym used by Abraham and Ty Franck (George R.R. Martin’s assistant, not kidding) in their collaborative sci-fi series, The Expanse

I don’t usually like science fiction. I never thought I would find myself anxiously awaiting another installment of a bona fide “space opera.” But here I am.

What does it for me is the combination of believable setting (pretty near future, when people are just beginning to expand into other parts of the solar system) and insanely well-written characters. This series offers some of the best love stories and human tragedies I’ve ever read, spaceships or no spaceships.

Oh, and The Expanse series is now being made into a TV show on Syfy. Quick! Like it before it’s cool! Cibola Burn Comes out June 17.

Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Okay, I know I’m a little late to the party on this one. Judging by all the reviews I’ve read, this book is one of the best things to happen to YA in a long time, and is one of those admirable cases of a YA book “bridging the gap” and appealing to all ages of readers.

I got this book right off the shelves here at The Writing Barn, and I could barely see the cover art due to all the giant award stickers it’s garnered. I couldn’t even see that there was a red pickup truck on the cover until I found this image online.

I’m only about 50 pages in at the moment, but I get the feeling it’s going to be as great as everyone says it is. Plus, I love books about friendship, and the protags have some pretty nifty and loaded first names.

Bone by Jeff Smith

I know, I know–again, late to the party. I remember kids in middle and high school checking out installments of Bone from the library all the time but, as was the case with me and Harry Potter until a few years ago, I just never got around to reading them.

I’m hoping this series can help break me of a nasty habit I’ve acquired when it comes to reading graphic novels: I tend to only focus on the text, and flippantly breeze over all the (usually incredible) illustrations. I take the “graphic” out of “graphic novel.” Maybe Bone will fix that.

To be honest, I don’t know that much about Bone, other than it’s epic and the main character is cute. I like epic novels, and I like cute things, so I think this will turn out alright.

The Available World by Ander Monson

And now for some poetry!

Again, not a new book (it came out in 2010), but definitely still relevant and interesting and all that good stuff. I’ve skimmed through it already, but haven’t really taken the time to sit down with it and let the poems sink in. I read Vacationland, his 2005 collection revolving around his icy Michigan hometown, and loved his consistently funny but dark voice.

From what I’ve tasted of it so far, The Available World focuses a lot on information, on its abundance and inevitability in a postmodern life. It’s about hyper-specific image as much as it is about language itself, specifically through the lens of the Information Age.

Summer is probably a good time to read this, too, because if The Available World is anything like Monson’s other books, chances are it’ll be pretty depressing. Not in a dark-gloomy-Poe-Plath kind of way, but a sadness that just sort of creeps up on you even in seemingly playful poems. It’ll be nice to have bright weather outside to balance things out.

Demon Moon by Jack Williamson

I’ll be honest, I have little to no idea what this book is about. I don’t think I even read the back before I bought it. But I mean… look at it.

Every once in a while, I raid the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of Half Price Books looking for the campiest, most ridiculous cover art I can find. If the pages of the winning book don’t have Cheeto stains, I buy that book without a second thought. Demon Moon came from my latest HPB haul, and I am insanely proud of it. That unicorn. That outfit. That…planet? Sun? Demon moon? Who knows! This book only has one extremely vague review on Amazon, so I’m in for a surprise.

What’s on your summer reading list? Comment and let us know!