The summer has brought not only the heat, but also a great selection of vacation reads. Check out the books below and come by the store to see what else we have.
Florida by Lauren Groff
(Riverhead, $27.00)
Signed Copies Available
Storms, snakes, sinkholes, and secrets: In Lauren Groff's Florida, the hot sun shines, but a wild darkness lurks. Florida is a "superlative" book (Boston Globe), "gorgeously weird and limber" (New Yorker), "frequently funny" (San Francisco Chronicle), "brooding, inventive and often moving" (NPR Fresh Air) — as Groff is recognized as "Florida's unofficial poet laureate, as Joan Didion was for California." (Washington Post)
Good Trouble: Stories by Joseph O'Neill
(Pantheon, $22.00)
A masterly collection of eleven stories about the way we live now from the best-selling author of Netherland. From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O'Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, underlying violence, and, sometimes, surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early twenty-first century.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
(Penguin, $16.00)
"Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too " — Reese Witherspoon
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
(Scribner, $17.00)
Jesmyn Ward's historic second National Book Award-winner is "perfectly poised for the moment" (The New York Times)—an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. "Ward's writing throbs with life, grief, and love... this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it" (Buzzfeed).
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
(Riverhead, $16.00)
Two couples take their four children ages six to eleven on a holiday cruise and all goes well until they take an ill fated day trip on the coast of Panama where the children disappear and are later discovered to have been abducted by drug runners. It sounds harrowing and it is an intense read but it's also a nuanced examination of family and what it means to be American told from multiple points of view. The result is a remarkable experience that will have you flipping pages to find out what happens and yet you'll also find that you want to slow down just to savor the writing. — CM
Shark Drunk by Morten Stroksnes
(Vintage, $16.95)
In this true story, two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, set out onto the icy Norweigan waters surrounding the islands. Their quest: to pursue the infamous Greenland shark—a massive creature that can grow to twenty-six feet in length and more than a ton in weigh—from a tiny rubber boat. But the shark is not known for its size alone: its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory.
Calypso by David Sedaris
(Little Brown & Co., $28.00)
Signed Copies Available
When David Sedaris buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, he envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.
Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley
(MCD/Farrar Straus & Giroux, $26.00)
Signed Copies Available
From the New York Times-bestselling author Sloane Crosley comes Look Alive Out There—a brand-new collection of essays filled with her trademark hilarity, wit, and charm. The characteristic heart and punch-packing observations are back, but with a newfound coat of maturity. A thin coat. More of a blazer, really.
The Gulf: The Making of an America Sea by Jack E. Davis
(Liveright, $17.95)
No region of the American South has experienced a more diverse history than the Gulf of Mexico. This so called "American Sea" has been the sight of some of our nation's greatest triumphs while also being the source of our greatest tragedies. Davis' marvelous book chronicles every moment in prose as refreshing as a summer dip in cool, coastal waters. — AR
The Lonely Witness by William Boyle
(Pegasus, $25.95)
Signed Copies Available
After a traumatizing adolescence and self-destructive young adulthood, Amy resolves to lead a quiet life helping through the simple austerity of the neighborhood Catholic Church. It's in the midst of this stewardship that she finds herself witness to an act of what seems to be random violence. Though horrified, the thrill and danger of the act draw Amy further and further back into a world of moral ambivalence, desperation, and horizons that extend beyond a few blocks in Brooklyn, where she finds herself at a crossroads between who she was, who she wishes to be, and perhaps something altogether different from either.
The Saboteur by Paul Kix
(Harper, $27.99)
Signed Copies Available
In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II—Robert de La Rochefoucauld, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur—and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain’s Special Operations Executive.