Eleven perfect summer reading picks from Mayfield librarians

Set in 1920s Moscow, this beautifully written book will capture your heart and imagination with its unforgettable cast of characters. If you read one book this summer, choose this one!

 

Want a book that you can pick up and put down without missing a beat? You’ll love the short, engaging chapters in this book that share the true stories of the women behind such diverse men as Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, and Jerry Garcia.

 

In this dystopian, end of the world story, a devastating flu pandemic ends civilization as we know it. Yet a small traveling troupe of actors and musicians survive and dedicate themselves to keeping Shakespeare and classical music alive.  Great characters and a strange plot twist make this book hard to put down!

Part history, part science, Sam Kean employs his witty style to pen a highly readable book that explores stories of neurological curiosities that have helped advance our understanding of the inner workings of the brain.

 

Feeling a bit nostalgic? Be transported back to 1960s America, as beloved writer John Steinbeck sets out on a road trip across America with his poodle, Charley.  

 

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers, and The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

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This slim book covers so much in a very short space — the largely unknown history of the writer and illustrator (Henry Carter) of the most famous anatomy text — and a mini-lesson in gross anatomy. In spite of the subject matter, Hayes never strays from what it means to be human. His reverence for life gives this book a beating heart.

 

I love a good medical mystery — and this is the fascinating story about how a doctor of very modest means traces the spread of cholera through London in 1831 — and discovers that water is the means by which the disease is spread. He is able to prove his hypothesis, and is the first physician to use investigative methods to trace disease.

 

This story is set in Mexico in the late 1800s, a time of political unrest, when magic was practiced alongside Catholicism. Urea spent 20 years writing this epic novel, which is based on his family’s history — and the “mythic” life of his great aunt Teresita, who according to reports at the time, rose from the dead and was reborn with the power to heal. Urrea’s prose is lush with imagery and vivid characters. The narrative includes elements of magical realism, but is also a very well researched history of Mexico before the turn of the century.

 

This novel, written for a young adult audience, is a book you should not feel guilty reading — if you enjoy getting a good dose of detailed French history. Donnelly, who writes primarily historical novels, split her narrative between contemporary Paris, and Paris during the French Revolution. The two protagonists, one a servant to the royal family, and the other, a troubled American teenager, are appealing characters — but this novel is really driven by mysteries investigated (DNA testing of a heart thought to belong to the young Prince Louis-Charles), secrets uncovered (a journal hidden in a guitar case), and a curious incidents of time travel, one of which takes place during a spooky rave inside a Paris catacomb.

 

I happen to be a fan of magical realism — which may be why I like this novel so much. I think it is also because the characters — and the emotions simmering within their cakes, peanut butter sandwiches, and buttered toast — seem like people I know. Rose Edelstein, the main character can taste what others are feeling in the food they make.

 

And one more…..

 

If you haven’t read this book before, it is the perfect summer read. Don’t put it down for long though — it helps to read it in a few sittings in order to keep track of the coming and goings of Henry DeTamble (a librarian!), and the evolution of his relationship with Clare, whose life he literally falls into time after time. The novel takes a tragic turn at the end (foreshadowed), and then another turn that may make you cry.