Savor Summer -- Great Summer Reads

Ah, summer reading. I love reading any time of the year, but there's something about summertime. In the summer it seems as if there's a bit of freedom to read anything. Light beachy reads, classics you've never read before, old favorites.

"I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once."
                              --C.S. Lewis

(I couldn't agree more with that quote. This spring I re-read Anne of Green Gables and Coming Home and enjoyed visiting with old friends.  Do you have favorites you like to re-read every year?).

A few years ago when we went on vacation I bought a handful of paperbacks at a secondhand bookstore before we left (a couple were even from the $1 cart). I spent nearly every moment (when I wasn't beachcombing or dog walking or eating or sketching) reading... in the car on the way there, on the ferry, on the deck of the lake house... I read 3 books that vacation and I enjoyed each one. When I think about them now, they all seem summery to me:

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquirel
Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (my favorite of her books is The Lacuna)
Local Girls by Alice Hoffman (I think my favorites by her are The Story Sisters and The Third Angel)

If you're going on vacation it's fun to leave a paperback book in the hotel or cabin where you're staying for someone else to enjoy. Easy to do when you pick them up from a used bookstore.

Recently I've been on a roll reading good books. Sometimes I like everything I read and at other times nothing seems to click. Does that happen to you, too?

Here are some I've enjoyed recently:

• Delicous by Ruth Reichl (I was so excited to find out she'd written a novel after I'd enjoyed reading her non-fiction)
• The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows (If you haven't read the book she co-authored with Mary Ann Schaffer -- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society -- Go out and get it RIGHT NOW! It's also a great audiobook performed by a full cast)
• The Black Echo by Michael Connelly (this is the first book in the Harry Bosch series. My dad kept recommending these to me and my family enjoyed watching the Amazon original series this winter so I finally decided to try the books. I can get a bit obsessed with reading every book in a series and I'm afraid that might happen in this case, too. Another mystery seriesI read straight through and would highly recommend is Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache novels).
• The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Looking to find more suggestions? In February I shared some favorites from what I'd read over the past year and asked for suggestions from my readers. There were many of great recommendations in the comments (Thank you!!!) so go take a look at that post if you haven't already. I love getting a good book discussion going.

If you're looking for booklists or other recommendations, I've pulled together a few great resources (please let me know in the comments if you have other favorite sources for finding books to read!):

• The TED blog has a list of books recommended by TED speakers and attendees for summer reading
• Publishers Weekly shares a list of best summer reading books for 2015
• Goodreads put together a list of top books of this summer
• The New York Times collected a list of "Cool Books for Hot Summer Days"
• For their summer reading program, The New York Public Library created booklists for various ages. Check your local library, too, because I'm sure they've created lists of recommended books.
• NPR is always a great place to discover interesting books to read. There are lots of ways to search and browse on their website and you can listen to the author interviews, too.

Plus, take a look at Simone's Savor Summer book post for even more ideas.

What books have you enjoyed lately?