- Emily Stoll
- Monday, July 01, 2019
Summer has officially arrived, and according to AAA Travel, more than 100 million Americans plan to take a family vacation. Whether hitting the road, hopping on a train or boarding a plane, be sure to pack some entertainment (📚🎧) for the trip.
Richland Library is offering up some hot reads that you can pack with you or download - if you're in a hurry and cannot make it to a library location.
Check out what our staff are saying would make the perfect travel companions. These picks are featured in the July/August edition of Columbia Living Magazine.
The Summer Guests by Mary Alice Monroe
Recommended by Chantal Wilson, Richland Library Research & Readers' Advisory Department
The Summer Guests is Mary Alice Monroe’s latest standalone novel, and it will be a welcome addition to your beach bag this summer. When a hurricane threatens the coast from Florida to South Carolina, an eclectic group of evacuees flees for the horse farm of Grace and Charles Phillips in Tryon, North Carolina. In addition to these people, there are quite a few rescue dogs and horses making the trip as well. The Summer Guests is a novel that invites the reader to consider both the endings and new beginnings that are born from natural disasters and how the bonds of friendship and family can be tested during those times. While this reviewer might have hoped for some of the character stories to be fleshed out further, Monroe fans will be pleased with her newest intimate, heartwarming, character-driven tale.
Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews
Recommended by Chantal Wilson, Richland Library Research & Readers' Advisory Department
You know summer has arrived when Mary Kay Andrews publishes her newest book, and the latest, Sunset Beach, makes a great beach read if you are looking for something with a fast pace, sunny locales and interesting characters. Drue Campbell is going through a bit of a rough patch when she learns that she has inherited her grandparents’ cottage in Sunset Beach, Florida upon her mother’s death. She also reluctantly accepts a job at the law firm of her father (from whom she is estranged), vetting potential personal-injury clients and cases. In between fixing up her grandparents’ cottage and working in her new job, Drue becomes entangled in two mysteries: a current case involving one of her father’s former clients whose daughter was murdered and a decades-old missing-person’s case that her dad might have had an interest in. Mystery, romance and a twist at the end make this a fun, relaxing read.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Recommended by Lisa Gieskes, Richland Library Film & Sound Department
Normal People is a modern day, coming-of-age story. Set in County Sligo, Ireland, the story begins in 2011. Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron are two teenagers from different worlds. He is from a working class background, and she is the daughter of solicitors. His mother cleans her house. Connell is the popular one in school, but he is attracted to the outcast Marianne. They develop an intense relationship and soon meet in secret. Their stories unfold through their college years. Over time, they switch social statuses. This novel explores relationships, friendship, love and dysfunction. It will leave you wondering what is normal.
The Splintering of the American Mind: Identity Politics, Inequality, and Community on Today’s College Campuses by William Egginton
Recommended by Bland Lawson, Richland Library Business & Careers Department
The (insert relevant term here) of the American Mind has been a popular book title formula since Allan Bloom’s 1987 best-seller, The Closing of the American Mind. Books, like this one, offer a critique of academic culture in America, usually with a political slant. William Egginton, a humanities professor at Johns Hopkins, admirably threads the needle between the conservative view that identity politics have watered down the college curriculum and the progressive claim that not enough has yet been done to uproot entrenched institutional racism, gender discrimination and similar evils.
The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
Recommended by Megan Mathis, Richland Library Research & Readers’ Advisory Department
Ruth Ware (The Woman in Cabin 10; In a Dark, Dark Wood) has been described as the Agatha Christie of our time. In her latest twisted mystery, a young woman decides to bluff her way into a windfall after mistakenly receiving a letter, saying she is the beneficiary of a substantial inheritance. Hal knows there must be a mistake, but she is also desperately in debt, so she decides to fake it, and she ends up being drawn into a sinister family drama. Ware creates a strong sense of place from the pier at Brighton Beach to the dilapidated, frigid, spooky house in the English countryside where the inheritors congregate.