Summer reading: August — Picardie, Ebershoff, Krasikov, more
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In June, the book editors looked forward to books that might make good summer reading. In case you’ve already finished the books from June and July — quite a stack! — we’ve got the August list ready to go. This month’s picks are here and on the next page. When reviews are published, we’ll add links to the list. Happy reading!
Daphne: A Novel by Justine Picardie
The lives of Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës intertwine in a story of literary obsession and deception.
The 19th Wife: A Novel by David Ebershoff
A Mormon woman’s crusade against her husband, Brigham Young, and his church is woven with a present-day story of murder and polygamy in Utah.
One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov
A debut collection of stories about Russians, Georgians and émigrés from the former Soviet Union — and some who have returned.
Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet by Ian F. McNeely and Lisa Wolverton
Monks, libraries and more: a history of humanity’s long effort to protect and preserve knowledge for the future.
The Road Home: A Novel by Rose Tremain
A widower, seeking to support his family, leaves Eastern Europe to live among fellow immigrant dreamers in London and finds the thought of returning problematic.
Southern Storm: Sherman’s March to the Sea by Noah Andre Trudeau
The author of ‘Gettysburg’ details Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s effort to break the backbone of the South.
This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Anna Winger
Walter, who dubs Tom Cruise movies into German and dreams of making it in Hollywood, and his neighbor Hope, an American trying to adjust to life in Berlin, forge a friendship among the ghosts of history.
Blackout: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza
A Rio de Janeiro detective can’t get the murder of a homeless man out of his mind and soon discovers a connection to the slaying of a beautiful denizen of the city.
Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey
Behind the scenes at London’s storied Natural History Museum and a look at the collections and their collectors. Fortey sees the world’s great museums as the saviors of nature’s diversity.
The Implacable Order of Things: A Novel by José Luís Peixoto
The tangles wrought by love and jealousy torment the inhabitants of a dirt-poor rural Portuguese village.
The Little Book: A Novel by Selden Edwards
The high-living scion of a banking family suddenly finds himself transported back in time to late 19th century Vienna, half a century before his birth.
Man in the Dark: A Novel by Paul Auster
A retired book critic, recovering from a car accident, spends a troubled night re-imagining the country’s recent history and avoiding his own.
A Week in October: A Novel by Elizabeth Subercaseaux
A husband discovers his mortally ill wife’s novel-in-progress and wonders whether her writings are really fiction or the untold story of their lives.
What Happened to Anna K.: A Novel by Irina Reyn
A re-imagining of the Tolstoy novel, set in the Russian-Jewish immigrant community of Queens, N.Y.
White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple
An intense literary, epistolary friendship between the shy poet and her mentor, the radical abolitionist and reformer.
The White Mary: A Novel by Kira Salak
An adventure tale set in the jungles of New Guinea, in the tradition of Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim.’
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank
What happens when the faction calling itself ‘conservative’ takes over the controls of the state: how conservatism-in-power is very different from conservatism on the streets.
Photo by Jonne KIngma via Flickr