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The Turquoise Table

Kristin Schell

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in The Turquoise Table

20 Must Read Books for Summer

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Top Summer Books & GIVEAWAY

Longer days mean more time to read! Well, perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but we can dream can’t we?

I’m making my way through each of these books and there’s no way I’ll be able to pick a favorite. There’s something on this list for everyone. I hope you’ll grab a book and sit with your neighbor, try a book club, or just curl up and enjoy.

At the bottom, enter for your chance to win one of these fantastic books!

Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom

Alone Time is divided into four parts, each set in a different city, in a different season, in a single year. The destinations–Paris, Istanbul, Florence, New York–are all pedestrian-friendly, allowing travelers to slow down and appreciate casual pleasures instead of hurtling through museums and posting photos to Instagram. Each section spotlights a different theme associated with the joys and benefits of time alone and how it can enable people to enrich their lives–facilitating creativity, learning, self-reliance, as well as the ability to experiment and change.

 

 

 

Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin

Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary—perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.

*Because I’m headed to Alaska this summer!*

 

 

 

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

 

 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.

Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

 

How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen & Marshall Goldsmith

Leadership expert Sally Helgesen and bestselling leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith have trained thousands of high achievers–men and women–to reach even greater heights. Again and again, they see that women face specific and different roadblocks from men as they advance in the workplace. In fact, the very habits that helped women early in their careers can hinder them as they move up. Simply put, what got you here won’t get you there . . . and you might not even realize your blind spots until it’s too late.

 

 

 

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.

 

Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capo Crucet

When Lizet-the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the first in her family to graduate from high school-secretly applies and is accepted to an ultra-elite college, her parents are furious at her decision to leave Miami. Just weeks before she’s set to start school, her parents divorce and her father sells her childhood home, leaving Lizet, her mother, and Leidy-Lizet’s older sister, a brand-new single mom-without a steady income and scrambling for a place to live.

Pulled between life at college and the needs of those she loves, Lizet is faced with difficult decisions that will change her life forever. Urgent and mordantly funny, Make Your Home Among Strangers tells the moving story of a young woman torn between generational, cultural, and political forces; it’s the new story of what it means to be American today.

 

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.

 

 

 

 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan’s finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee’s complex and passionate characters–strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis–survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.

 

 

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive–which they don’t have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play.

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg

Margaret Bragg does not own a single cookbook. She measures in “dabs” and “smidgens” and “tads” and “you know, hon, just some.” She cannot be pinned down on how long to bake corn bread (“about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the mysteries of your oven”). Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. Many of her recipes, recorded here for the first time, pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next. In The Best Cook in the World, Rick Bragg finally preserves his heritage by telling the stories that framed his mother’s cooking and education, from childhood into old age. Because good food always has a good story, and a recipe, writes Bragg, is a story like anything else.

 

 

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya

Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive.

In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of “victim” and recognize the power of the imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms

 

 

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

 

 

 

 

 

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

 

 

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

In their remote mountain village, Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. For the Akha people, ensconced in ritual and routine, life goes on as it has for generations—until a stranger appears at the village gate in a jeep, the first automobile any of the villagers has ever seen.

A powerful story about circumstances, culture, and distance, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little known region and its people and celebrates the bond of family.

 

 

 

The Traveling Feast by Rick Bass

From his bid to become Eudora Welty’s lawn boy to the time George Plimpton offered to punch him in the nose, lineage has always been important to Rick Bass. Now at a turning point–in his midfifties, with his long marriage dissolved and his grown daughters out of the house–Bass strikes out on a journey of thanksgiving.

His aim: to make a memorable meal for each of his mentors, to express his gratitude for the way they have shaped not only his writing but his life.

 

 

 

The Verdun Affair by Nick Dybek

A sweeping, romantic, and profoundly moving novel, set in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and Los Angeles in the 1950s, about a lonely young man, a beautiful widow, and the amnesiac soldier whose puzzling case binds them together even as it tears them apart.

From the bone-strewn fields of Verdun to the bombed-out cafés of Paris, from the riot-torn streets of Bologna to the riotous parties of 1950s Hollywood, The Verdun Affair is a riveting tale of romance, grief, and the far-reaching consequences of a single lie.

 

 

 

There There by Tommy Orange

As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland Powwow—some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent—momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.

 

 

Tip of the Iceberg by Mark Adams

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a luxury “floating university,” populated by some of America’s best and brightest scientists and writers, including the anti-capitalist eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years later, Alaska is still America’s most sublime wilderness, both the lure that draws a million tourists annually on Inside Passage cruises and a natural resources larder waiting to be raided. As ever, it remains a magnet for weirdos and dreamers.

Armed with Dramamine and an industrial-strength mosquito net, Mark Adams sets out to retrace the 1899 expedition. Using the state’s intricate public ferry system, the Alaska Marine Highway System, Adams travels three thousand miles, following the George W. Elder‘s itinerary north through Wrangell, Juneau, and Glacier Bay, then continuing west into the colder and stranger regions of the Aleutians and the Arctic Circle. Along the way, he encounters dozens of unusual characters (and a couple of very hungry bears) and investigates how lessons learned in 1899 might relate to Alaska’s current struggles in adapting to climate change.

 

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself–shadowed and luminous at once–we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings’ mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn’t know and understand in that time, and it is this journey–through facts, recollection, and imagination–that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.

 

Giveaway

Aren’t there so many fabulous {and diverse!} books out there?! It’s hard to know which one to pick up first. Because I don’t want to read alone this summer, I’d love to gift one of you with a copy of the book of your choice.

How to enter the giveaway:

(1) Leave a comment below and let me know which book you’d most like to read this summer.

(2) Subscribe to The Turquoise Table newsletter.

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The winner is Linda Moran! Enjoy your summer read!

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Filed Under: The Turquoise Table Tagged With: books, giveaway, summer

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Comments

  1. AvatarToni says

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    A LOT of these sound interesting, but I’m eager to read Lisa See’s books, as I have little experience with Asia myself and I’m very curious to learn.

    Reply
    • AvatarLinda Moran says

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      The art of gathering sounds like just the read I need to help me learn how to do hospitality the best and I need all the help I can get!

      Reply
  2. AvatarJudy says

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    Just Mercy. Heard Bryan speak, but never read any of his books

    Reply
  3. AvatarDanica says

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    So hard to choose! What a great book list!
    I think I’ll go with “The Great Alone”
    I lived in Alaska for a year and I love reading all things Alaska! I’m going to search the library for some of these other titles too. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  4. AvatarJennie says

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    I can’t wait to read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane!

    Reply
  5. AvatarStacy Meade says

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    So many great reads that I am interested in! Have not read any of them and if I had to pick one, it would be Just Mercy.

    Thanks Kristin Schell!!!

    Reply
  6. AvatarJessica Onofre Seay says

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    I’d love to win “Warlight.” Sounds very interesting!

    Reply
  7. AvatarDebbie says

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    I’m in the middle of The Sun Does Shine (AMAZING). The Girl Who Smiled Beads is on my to read list. Make Your Home Among Strangers sounds like a good read too though! So many good ones!

    Reply
  8. AvatarLaura says

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    The tea girl oh humming bird lane looks out of my normal reading reportage yet really interesting. My reading list will never be empty.

    Reply
  9. AvatarTracey says

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    I would love to read the Anthony Ray Hinton book.

    Reply
  10. AvatarSuzy James says

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    I would love to read The Sun Does Shine!

    Reply
  11. AvatarLaura P says

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    I would love to read The Art of Gathering. This topic has been heavy on my heart lately.

    Reply
  12. AvatarSherry Howard says

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    All of the books you have chosen look super but I am drawn to The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg! I love to cook and have so many memories of my southern grandma who loved to cook as well! Blessings on your summer!

    Reply
  13. AvatarMarina says

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    I’d love to win “Homegoing” but would be tickled to win any of them, as long as it’s not a scary or suspenseful book.

    Thanks for the chance to win!

    Reply
  14. AvatarBreeann says

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    All of these books are interesting to me on different levels. I think the one I am most excited to read is Warlight. So many great options!!

    Thanks for hosting 🙂

    Reply
  15. AvatarMelissa says

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    I would like to read How Women Rise. I’ve been stuck and how like some insight on how to move upward.

    Reply
  16. AvatarMelissa says

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    I would like to read How Women Rise. I think this might help me move forward.

    Reply
  17. AvatarEmily says

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    Just Mercy

    Reply
  18. AvatarAnnie says

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    The Great Alone! Sounds interesting. Thanks for the giveaway!

    Reply
  19. AvatarHeather says

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    How Women Rose for sure. It instantly went onto my Goodreads list.

    Reply
  20. AvatarLyssa says

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    Homegoing sounds really interesting and artistic. I feel like it would be a really good backdrop to the other books I’m reading this summer: The Hate U Give and No One Ever Asked.

    Reply
  21. AvatarMelodie Hill says

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    I’m interested in Just Mercer and Children of BlooD and bone! Heard great things about both!

    Reply
  22. AvatarRobyn says

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    “My Name is Lucy Barton” sounds like a good read!

    Reply
  23. AvatarKim says

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    I would love to read several of the books you listed so I will definitely save your list and share it with my friends. I have read The Turquoise Table and LOVE it. I think I would like The Great Alone. Fingers crossed I would love to win a copy. Thanks so much for sharing this list!

    Reply
  24. AvatarJodi says

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    I love a true life story, but “ The Art of Gathering” is the topic I’m most interested in currently. Thank you for inviting me “to the table”, Kristen! ??

    Reply
  25. AvatarThena says

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    My Name is Lucy Barton peeked my interest.

    Reply
  26. AvatarHolly says

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    The art of Gathering

    Reply
  27. AvatarAmy B. says

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    Hi Kristin,
    The Art of Gathering & The Best Cook books look like they would be fun reads. But they all sound good.
    Thank you for a chance to win.
    Amy

    Reply
  28. AvatarSue says

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    I would love to read The Traveling Feast, by Rick Bass. Sue

    Reply
  29. AvatarShelly says

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    The great Alone because I have always wanted to go to Alaska. I am fascinated by it.

    Reply
  30. AvatarCatie H says

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    I’d like to read The Art of Gathering- we love to host on our home, or Tip of the Iceburg- I LOVE learning about explorers and Alaska

    Reply
  31. AvatarLois Bringhurst says

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    the Best Cook in the world – I love hearing the stories behind favorite recipes. Second choice would be Alone time

    Reply

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Meet Kristin

Welcome! I'm so glad you're here.

I'm on a mission to love my neighbors. I put an ordinary picnic table in my front yard, painted it turquoise and invited neighbors, friends, and even strangers to hang out and do life together at the Turquoise Table®.

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Winter wonderland in #atx 🤷🏻‍♀️❄️🙌🏽
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Sure feels like we are making up for lost time and setting our hope for the year ahead. Happy New Year friends!! 

#2021
Cheers to twenty-three! 🥂 Cheers to twenty-three! 🥂
No coffee on the porch for me this morning! I’ll No coffee on the porch for me this morning! I’ll stay by the fire. We made the 16 hour trek to start the new year in our happy place. We’ve never been here the week between Christmas and NYE and we’re excited to explore in the snow. ❄️ I’m already laughing at our summer stash of clothes we keep here —cotton leggings, hoodies, and fishing boots. Feel free to laugh with and at me. Also winter friends—give me all your tips. 

#winterwonderland #estespark #summerTexans #babyitscoldoutside #letitsnow
Merry Christmas friends! xo, Kristin Merry Christmas friends! xo, Kristin
12 Days of Christmas Day 12: 🌟 The Christmas St 12 Days of Christmas Day 12: 🌟 The Christmas Star

Tomorrow (12/21), just after sunset, the heavens will perform a rare show. Jupiter and Saturn will cross paths in the night’s sky and appear to shine as one bright star. The Bethlehem Star, scientifically called the “great conjunction,” will be visible for the first time in 800 years. 

On this winter solstice, the shortest day of the very longest year, step outside, look up and feast on JOY as heaven and nature sing. ✨

“O Father may that Holy Star
Grow every year more bright,
And send its glorious beams afar
To fill the world with light.”

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