Ohhhh, Memorial Day is the unofficial beginning of summer, and now it’s here. How exciting! Whether you’ve got big trips lined up for the season or you're just horsing around your local jaunts, one thing is for sure: there will be plenty of perfect reading outside days. So now is the best time to bulk up your TBR list and set the wheels in motion to finally cross some of them off.
Another kickoff of the summer season is one of the biggest annual events of publishing next weekend: Book Expo. In less than one week, the Javits Convention Center in New York City will be teeming with fellow booklovers. The event is the publishing trade event of the year, and it brings together authors, readers, publishers and booksellers to showcase their upcoming and current titles. There are author signings galore, tons of free swag, lots of educational sessions and a variety of author talks across three days starting from Wednesday, May 29th. BookCon immediately follows Book Expo on Saturday, June 1st and Sunday, June 2nd, and is open to the public. Similar to Book Expo, there are panels, special author talks, writing workshops and more. Click here for more info on Book Expo and here for more info on BookCon.
If you’re going to Book Expo, you’ll have to be rather selective about which events you’ll be able to make it to. There’s a lot going on at once, so here are a few things you might want on your radar --- they’re all on mine! Click on the linked events below to find their location, time and more details.
And even if you’re unable to attend Book Expo, be sure to follow along on all the social accounts, Book Expo's and the authors listed below. Plenty of people will be updating throughout, so you can catch the latest on what’s happening on the inside.
On Wednesday, Debbie Harry, frontwoman and general rock’n’roll bada$$ of the hot 70’s/80’s band Blondie, will be talking about her upcoming memoir, FACE IT, which will hit shelves in early October. Immediately following is the Adult Editors' Buzz panel which will highlight six of fall’s most anticipated releases. Later in the day, Jennifer Weiner, author of GOOD IN BED and IN HER SHOES, among others, will be in conversation with our very own Carol Fitzgerald. They’ll be discussing Weiner’s MRS. EVERYTHING, her newest novel that “explores women’s rights, sexual freedom, and the changing landscape of American politics from the 1950s to the present day.” It comes out June 11th and is going to be one of the most talked-about books of summer! Critically acclaimed YA author Leigh Bardugo will talk about her adult debut, NINTH HOUSE, “a mesmerizing tale of power, privilege, and dark magic among the Ivy League elite.” Bardugo will also be at BookCon, so if you miss her, there’s always a chance to catch her on the weekend.
On Thursday, the morning begins bright and early with the Adult Book & Author Breakfast featuring Malcolm Gladwell, Karin Slaughter, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Marjorie Liu. Later that morning, Adam Rippon, the breakout figure skating star from the 2016 Winter Olympics, will discuss his upcoming memoir, BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE. Dr. Ruth, the witty, longtime sexpert, will talk about her latest book, SEX FOR DUMMIES. I’ve seen her before, and she’s a total firecracker, so there’s some guaranteed laughs. A personal fave, actress and comedian Jenny Slate, will be in conversation with fellow comics John Hodgman and Pete Holmes. They’ll be discussing life, and the struggles of being in “the business.”
Friday’s activities include Booklist’s Annual "Shout ‘n Share,” where “librarians gather to talk about their most recent discoveries on the exhibit floor.” You can check out John Cena in the flesh as he talks about the second book in his kids’ picture book series, Elbow Grease. Close out the day with an educational panel on how 2018 and 2019 have really been years for women in books. It’s the perfect panel to gear you up for the third season premiere of “The Handmaid’s Tale” on June 5th on Hulu.
The weekend’s activities at BookCon include appearances from Leigh Bardugo, Neil Patrick Harris, Rainbow Rowell, Sarah Dessen, Alyssa Milano and so many more. There will be a panel with the author and producer of the upcoming AMC series “NOS4A2” based on the book of the same name. You can meet Ann M. Martin, the author of the ultra-famous Baby-Sitters Club series. You can delve deeper into “Game of Thrones” and have another convo with a fellow fan about that divisive ending. Or, you can learn more about the process of adapting a book for the big screen. There really is a little something for everyone, so be sure to click here to see the full list of guests and events, or to purchase your ticket...if you don’t already have one.
Here are some books to check out now. Psst: they all make excellent reads for the holiday weekend:
Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity --- and all of it for free --- in THE FARM by Joanne Ramos. In fact, you’re paid big money to stay here. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a “Host” at Golden Oaks --- or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile and consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm, or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on the delivery of her child.
In THE NIGHT BEFORE by Wendy Walker, Laura Lochner flees her Wall Street job and New York City apartment for her sister’s home in the Connecticut suburb where they both grew up after being devastated by the end of her last relationship. Though still haunted by the tragedy that’s defined her entire life, Laura is determined to take one more chance on love with a man she’s met on an Internet dating site. Rosie Ferro has spent most of her life worrying about her troubled sister. Fearless but fragile, Laura has always walked an emotional tightrope. So when Laura does not return home the following morning from her blind date, Rosie fears the worst. As she begins a desperate search to find her sister, she is not just worried about what this man might have done to Laura. She’s worried about what Laura may have done to him.
Kate White's SUCH A PERFECT WIFE is the story of Shannon Blaine, who sets off for a jog along the rural roads near her home in Lake George, New York on a sunny morning in late September. It’s her usual a.m. routine, her “me time” after dropping the kids off at school…except on this day she never returns. Is her husband lying when he says he has no clue where she is? Could Shannon have split on her own, overwhelmed by the pressures of her life? Or is she the victim of a sexual predator who had been prowling the area and snatched her before she knew what was happening? True crime writer Bailey Weggins heads north from New York City to report on the mysterious disappearance. An anonymous tip soon leads her to a grisly, bone-chilling discovery.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!
5 Things To Obsess About This Very Moment, in no particular order:
1. Booksmart hits theaters tomorrow
2. Astro Poets discuss famous literary characters and their astrological signs
3. Also, their first book is out in November
4. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is now on Broadway with lots of Tony nominations
5. "Stranger Things" season three is in the foreseeable future
Happy reading,
Nicole Sherman
Help 20SomethingReads.com
and The Book Report Network Expand
We Are at 50+% of Our Goal!
The Book Report Network is looking to make some big changes to 20SomethingReads and our other websites in 2019.Thanks to donations from our very supportive readers, between online and snail mail donations, we have raised over $27,000 of our $50,000 goal via our GoFundMe campaign! If you enjoy 20SomethingReads.com, please consider donating. Anything can help us reach our goal...even $5 or $10. You can read more about our plans and donate here. If you would rather donate via check, our address is:
The Book Report, Inc.
850 Seventh Avenue - Suite 901
New York, NY 10019
Thank you so much!
THE DAUGHTER'S TALE by Armando Lucas Correa (Historical Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Cassandra Campbell
Berlin, 1939. The dreams that Amanda Sternberg and her husband, Julius, had for their daughters are shattered when the Nazis descend on Berlin, burning down their beloved family bookshop and sending Julius to a concentration camp. Desperate to save her children, Amanda flees toward the south of France, where the widow of an old friend of her husband’s has agreed to take her in. Along the way, a refugee ship headed for Cuba offers another chance at escape. There, at the dock, Amanda is forced to make an impossible choice that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Once in Haute-Vienne, her brief respite is interrupted by the arrival of Nazi forces, and Amanda finds herself in a labor camp where once again she must make a heroic sacrifice. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
DISAPPEARING EARTH by Julia Phillips (Literary Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Ilyana Kadushin
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two young sisters go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, DISAPPEARING EARTH transports readers to vistas of rugged beauty and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE EAST END by Jason Allen (Literary Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Angelo Di Loreto
Corey Halpern, a local high schooler with a troubled home life, is desperate to leave the Hamptons and start anew somewhere else. His last summer before college, he settles for the escapism he finds in sneaking into neighboring mansions. One night, just before Memorial Day weekend, he breaks into the wrong home at the wrong time: the Sheffield estate, where he and his mother, Gina, work. Under the cover of darkness, Leo Sheffield --- a billionaire CEO, patriarch and the owner of the vast lakeside manor --- arrives unexpectedly with a companion. After a shocking poolside accident, everything depends on Leo burying the truth before his family and friends arrive for the holiday weekend. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
EXHALATION: Stories by Ted Chiang (Science Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available; read by Edoardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman and Amy Landon
From the acclaimed author of STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS --- the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival --- comes a groundbreaking new collection of short fiction. These are tales that tackle some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only Ted Chiang could imagine. In “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In “Exhalation,” an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom,” the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
THE FARM by Joanne Ramos (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Fran de Leon
Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity --- and all of it for free. In fact, you’re paid big money to stay here. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a “Host” at Golden Oaks --- or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile and consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm, or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on the delivery of her child. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
GUILTY by Laura Elliott (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Laoisha O'Callaghan
On a warm summer's morning, 13-year-old school girl Constance Lawson is reported missing. A few days later, Constance's uncle, Karl Lawson, suddenly finds himself swept up in a media frenzy created by journalist Amanda Bowe implying that he is the prime suspect. Six years later, Karl's life is in ruins. His marriage is over, and his family is destroyed. But the woman who took everything away from him is thriving. With a successful career, husband and gorgeous baby boy, Amanda's world is complete. Until the day she receives a phone call. In a heartbeat, she is plunged into every mother's worst nightmare. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.
IF SHE WAKES by Michael Koryta (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Robert Petkoff
As college senior Tara Beckley drives to deliver a visiting professor to a conference, a horrific car accident kills the professor and leaves Tara in a vegetative state. Or so her doctors think. In fact, she's a prisoner of locked-in syndrome: fully alert but unable to move a muscle. Trapped in her body, she learns that someone powerful wants her dead. But why? And what can she do, lying in a hospital bed, to stop them? Abby Kaplan, an insurance investigator, is hired by the college to look into Tara's case. When she starts asking questions, things quickly spin out of control, leaving Abby on the run and a mysterious young hit man named Dax Blackwell hard on her heels. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU by Liv Constantine (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Julia Whelan
Dr. Kate English has it all. Not only is she the heiress to a large fortune, she has a gorgeous husband and daughter, a high-flying career, and a beautiful home anyone would envy. But all that changes the night Kate’s mother, Lily, is found dead, brutally murdered in her own home. Heartbroken and distraught, Kate reaches out to her estranged best friend, Blaire Barrington, who rushes to her side for the funeral. That evening, Kate’s grief turns to horror when she receives an anonymous text: You think you’re sad now, just wait. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you had been buried today. Once Blaire decides to take the investigation into her own hands, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems in Baltimore high society. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
LIKE LIONS by Brian Panowich (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Brian Troxell
Clayton Burroughs is a small-town Georgia sheriff, a new father and, improbably, the heir apparent of Bull Mountain’s most notorious criminal family. As he tries to juggle fatherhood, his job, and his recovery from being shot in the confrontation that killed his two criminally inclined brothers last year, he’s doing all he can just to survive. Yet after years of carefully toeing the line between his life in law enforcement and his family, he finally has to make a choice. When a rival organization makes a first foray into Burroughs territory, leaving a trail of bodies and a whiff of fear in its wake, Clayton is pulled back into the life he so desperately wants to leave behind. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
MIDDLEGAME by Seanan McGuire (Fantasy)
Audiobook available, read by Amber Benson
Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own. Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE NEVER GAME by Jeffery Deaver (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Kaleo Griffith
A young woman has gone missing in Silicon Valley, and her father has hired Colter Shaw to find her. The son of a survivalist family, Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a "reward seeker," traveling the country to help police solve crimes and private citizens locate missing persons. But what seems a simple investigation quickly thrusts him into the dark heart of America's tech hub and the cutthroat billion-dollar video-gaming industry. When another victim is kidnapped, the clues point to one video game with a troubled past --- The Whispering Man. In that game, the player has to survive after being abandoned in an inhospitable setting with five random objects. Is a madman bringing the game to life? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE NIGHT BEFORE by Wendy Walker (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Gabra Zackman and Saskia Maarleveld
Devastated by the end of her last relationship, Laura Lochner fled her Wall Street job and New York City apartment for her sister’s home in the Connecticut suburb where they both grew up. Though still haunted by the tragedy that’s defined her entire life, Laura is determined to take one more chance on love with a man she’s met on an Internet dating site. Rosie Ferro has spent most of her life worrying about her troubled sister. Fearless but fragile, Laura has always walked an emotional tightrope. So when Laura does not return home the following morning from her blind date, Rosie fears the worst. As she begins a desperate search to find her sister, she is not just worried about what this man might have done to Laura. She’s worried about what Laura may have done to him. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
ORANGE WORLD AND OTHER STORIES by Karen Russell (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, read by a full cast
In “Bog Girl," a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a 2,000-year-old girl who he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these and five other stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void --- yet within it, Karen Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
THE SPECTATORS by Jennifer duBois (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Paul Boehmer and Nancy Linari
Talk show host Matthew Miller has made his fame by shining a spotlight on the most unlikely and bizarre secrets of society, exposing them on live television in front of millions of gawking viewers. However, the man behind “The Mattie M Show” remains a mystery --- both to his enormous audience and to those who work alongside him every day. But when the high school students responsible for a mass shooting are found to be devoted fans, Mattie is thrust into the glare of public scrutiny, seen as the wry, detached herald of a culture going downhill and going way too far. Soon, the secrets of Mattie’s past as a brilliant young politician in a crime-ridden New York City begin to push their way to the surface. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
SUCH A PERFECT WIFE by Kate White (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Cynthia Farrell
On a sunny morning in late September, Shannon Blaine sets off for a jog along the rural roads near her home in Lake George, New York. It’s her usual a.m. routine, her “me time” after dropping the kids off at school…except on this day she never returns. Is her husband lying when he says he has no clue where she is? Could Shannon have split on her own, overwhelmed by the pressures of her life? Or is she the victim of a sexual predator who had been prowling the area and snatched her before she knew what was happening? True crime writer Bailey Weggins heads north from New York City to report on the mysterious disappearance. An anonymous tip soon leads her to a grisly, bone-chilling discovery. Reviewed by Pamela Kramer.
SUNSET BEACH by Mary Kay Andrews (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Kathleen McInerney
Out of a job and down on her luck, Drue Campbell’s life doesn’t seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother’s funeral after a 20-year absence. Worse, he’s remarried --- to Drue’s eighth grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they’re offering her a job. It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritance: her grandparents’ beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach. With no other prospects, Drue begrudgingly joins the firm. But when a suspicious death at an exclusive beach resort nearby exposes possible corruption at her father’s firm, she is drawn into a case that may --- or may not --- involve her father. Reviewed by Amie Taylor.
THINGS MY SON NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THE WORLD by Fredrik Backman (Humor/Essays)
Audiobook available, read by Santino Fontana
THINGS MY SON NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THE WORLD collects the personal dispatches from the front lines of one of the most daunting experiences any man can face: fatherhood. As he conveys his profound awe at experiencing all the “firsts” that fill him with wonder and catch him completely unprepared, Fredrik Backman doesn’t shy away from revealing his own false steps and fatherly flaws, tackling issues both great and small, from masculinity and mid-life crises to practical jokes and poop. In between the sleep-deprived lows and wonderful highs, Backman takes a step back to share the true story of falling in love with a woman who is his complete opposite, and learning to live a life that revolves around the people you care about unconditionally. Reviewed by Pamela Kramer.
UNDER THE TABLE by Stephanie Evanovich (Romance/Humor)
Audiobook available, read by Katie Schorr
Suffocating in a dead-end marriage, Midwesterner Zoey Sullivan fled to New York and moved in with her older sister Ruth, a carefree, vivacious beauty with a string of eligible bachelors at her beck and call. When Zoey meets reclusive millionaire Tristan Malloy, she’s blown away by his kitchen and charmed by his impeccable gentlemanly manners. But despite his firm body, handsome looks and piles of cash, Tristan is shy and more than a little socially awkward. Zoey is sure that Tristan has all the right raw ingredients --- and she’s the right person to spice them up and turn him into a delectable dish. But Zoey is unprepared for just how well her makeover works. Reviewed by Pamela Kramer.
|