The staff of Small World Books in Venice, California, has been recommending books to a literary-minded beach crowd for more than 30 years. Here are their picks for this summer.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, by Maria Semple (Back Bay)A hilarious portrait of Seattle. Bernadette leaves and where does she go? Antarctica. A novel that entertains, but also addresses some important issues on individuality.
Sisterland, by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House)A story that follows two St. Louis sisters who deal differently with their gifts of prophesying the future.
Screwed, by Eoin Colfer (Overlook)A crime thriller with the same nutty protagonist as Colfer’s previous novel, Plugged
And The Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)By the author of the Kite Runner, this is the season’s literary event
Broken Harbor, by Tana French (Viking)This chilling story features compelling police characters and an unforgettable family fighting the tide of loss in a deserted subdivision — all with French’s gift for keeping the reader compulsively turning the pages.
The Flight of Gemma Hardy, by Margot Livesey (Harper Perennial)If you love Jane Eyre, you’ll love this update set in Scotland in the 1950s.
