Summer Reads: Book Recommendations For The Season

This is a rebroadcast of an earlier show (original air date June 1st); no calls will be taken.  

One of our most popular programs — what to read this summer! Our all-star cast will share the books they’ve read recently and are looking forward to reading. This summer also sees PBS' "Great American Read," an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels, as chosen in a national survey.

• Richard Russo, author of eight novels, including “Empire Falls,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. His new book is “The Destiny Thief – Essays on Writing, Writers and Life.”
• Josh Bodwell, executive director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, the series editor of a three-volume relaunch of the collected short stories and novellas of Andre Dubus. The first two volumes will be released on June 20. Richard Russo wrote the introduction to Vol. 2.
• Kate Christensen, author of seven novels, including “The Great Man,”” which won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, and soon-to-be-released “The Last Cruise.”” She’s the author of two food-centric memoirs, “Blue Plate Special” and “How to Cook a Moose,” which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir.
• Terri-Lynne DeFino (by phone), author of “The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers (And Their Muses).”
• Emily Connelly (by phone), editorial assistant with AudioFile Magazine.

• “Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer,” by Barbara Ehrenreich
• “House of Broken Angels,” by Luis Alberto Urea
• “The Last Cruise,” by Kate Christensen
• "Sunburn," by Laura Lippman
• "The Devil's Highway," by Luis Alberto Urrea

• "Trajectory," by Richard Russo
• “Moby Dick,” by Herman Melville
• “Kudos,” by Rachel Cusk, the final book in her "Outline" trilogy.
• “Sick,” by Porochista Khakpour
• “My Ex-Life,” by Stephen McCauley

• In Honor Of Father’s Day, June 17: “When I First Held You: 22 Critically Acclaimed Writers Talk About the Triumphs, Challenges, and Transformative Experience of Fatherhood,” edited by Brian Gresko
• The. Best. (So Far In 2018): “Anything Is Possible,” by Elizabeth Strout
• Must-Reads For Writers: “Draft No. 4,” by John McPhee and “The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers, and Life,” by Richard Russo
• Must-Read For Readers: “The Book: An Homage,” by Burkhard Spinnen
• Read Before You See The Movie This Summer: “The Bookshop,” by Penelope Fitzgerald, “Wildlife,” by Richard Ford and “Lean on Pete,” by Willy Vlautin
• In Celebration Of National Short Story Month, May: “Varieties of Exile” and “Paris Stories,” both by Mavis Gallant and “So Long: Stories 1987-1992” and “Where I Live Now: Stories 1993-1998,” both by Lucia Berlin
• To-Be-Read This Summer: “The Last Cruise,” by Kate Christensen, “The Fact of a Body,” by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, “The Burning Girl,” by Claire Messud and “Little Fires Everywhere,” by Celeste Ng

• "All the Ever Afters," by Danielle Teller
• "This Dark Road to Mercy" and "The Last Ballad," both by Wiley Cash
   

• AudioFile Sync summer audiobook program
• "Lincoln in the Bardo," by George Saunders
• "Children of Blood and Bone," by Tomi Adeyemi
• "Give Me Some Truth," by Eric Gansworth
• "The Hate You Give," by Angie Thomas
• "Born a Crime," by Trevor Noah
• "The Dublin Murder Squad Mysteries," by Tana French
• "Circe," by Madeline Miller

• Island Readers and Writers lists
• Rockport Public Library book sale
• George Guidall event at the Patten Free Library in Bath
• "Florida," Lauren Groff
• "Turtles All The Way Down," John Green
• "Jabari Jumps," by Gaia Cornwall
• "A Gentleman in Moscow," by Amor Towles
• "Lost Empress," by Sergio De La Pava
• "The Overstory," by Richard Powers
• "The Fun Mover Chronicles," by Tim Fahey
• "The Stand," by Stephen King
• "Vacationland," by John Hodgman
• "Stranded: A Story of Frontier Survival," by Matthew Mayo
• "White Pine: American History and the Tree that Made a Nation," by Andrew Vietze
• "Trap the Devil," by Ben Coes
• "Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine's Fight for Woman Suffrage," by Anne B. Gass
• "Beyond the Road," by Jt Curran
• "The Believing Brain," by Michael Shermer
• "Calypso," by David Sedaris
• "The Swan Thieves," by Elizabeth Kostova
• "Camulod Chronicles Series," by Jack Whyte
• "Call Me American," by Abdi Nor Iftin
• "When We Were the Kennedys," by Monica Wood
• "Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro," by Rachel Slade
• "Waking Lions," by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
• Jen Blood's K-9 series

For more recommendations from our listeners, visit the Maine Calling Facebook page.

• Bruce Springsteen - I'm on Fire
• The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait