Adult Summer Reading 2015: Staff Picks
Summer reading is not just for kids! Write a review of any book you read during the summer and you will be entered into weekly drawings for great prizes and for our grand prize a Kindle HD7!
Staff Picks from the Valley Cottage Library
Here are the Valley Cottage Library
staff's summer picks.
Read more of our staff picks on GoodReads
Staff Picks for Summer Reading
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The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by
ISBN: 9780812994780Recommended by Nancy
Celebrated brain surgeon Thomas Eapen has been sitting on his porch, talking to dead relatives. At least that is the story his wife, Kamala, prone to exaggeration, tells their daughter, Amina, a photographer living in Seattle. Reluctantly Amina returns home and finds a situation that is far more complicated than her mother let on, with roots in a trip the family, including Amina's rebellious brother Akhil, took to India twenty years earlier. -
Ciao Bella by
ISBN: 9780312379926Recommended by Mary
A fantasia of a double tale skimming through the art capitals of Europe with double muses, double love pursuits, double Raphaels, even double authors, a tale dripping with idealized romantic settings, mystery, art, and a touch of magic, -
Just Breathe by
ISBN: 9780778325772Recommended by Mary
Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues in her syndicated comic strip 'Just Breathe'. Following the breakup of her marriage she flees to the small Californian town where she grew up. Then she discovers she is pregnant with her ex's twins. -
The River of Doubt by
ISBN: 9780385507967Recommended by Christy
At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth. The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. -
The Wild Trees by
ISBN: 9781400064892Recommended by Christy
The Wild Trees is an amazing account of scientific and spiritual passion for the tallest trees in the world, the startling biosystem of Rthe canopy, S and those who are committed to the preservation of this astonishing and largely unknown world. -
Everything I Never Told You by
ISBN: 9781594205712Recommended by Liene
Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins the story about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. When Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. -
The Patrick Melrose Novels by
ISBN: 9780312429966Recommended by Sarah
For more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an extraordinary portrait of the beleaguered and self-loathing world of privilege. Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty--welcome to the declining British aristocracy. -
A Fine Balance by
ISBN: 9781400030651Recommended by Joanne
This magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. -
Waiting by
ISBN: 9780375406539Recommended by Joanne
This is the story of Lin Kong, a man living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every move and stifle the promptings of his innermost heart. For more than seventeen years, this devoted and ambitious doctor has been in love with an educated, clever, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young--a humble and touchingly loyal woman, whom he visits in order to ask, again and again, for a divorce. -
Our Souls at Night by
ISBN: 9781101875896Recommended by Amelia
A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. In Holt, Colorado, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife.Their brave adventures--their pleasures and their difficulties--are hugely involving and truly resonant, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature. -
The Girl on the Train by
ISBN: 9781594633669Recommended by Amelia
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. -
The Left Hand of Darkness by
ISBN: 9780441478125Recommended by Joanne
In Winter, or Gethen, Ursula K. Le Guin has created a fully realized planet and people. But Gethen society is more than merely a fascinating creation. The concept of a society existing totally without sexual prejudices is even more relevant today than it was in 1969. -
Station Eleven by
ISBN: 9780385353304Recommended by Ashley
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. -
Left Behind by
ISBN: 9780842329118Recommended by Sandy
After millions of people around the world vanish in one moment, in what many claim to be the Rapture, Rayford Steele begins a search for the truth amidst global chaos. -
The Queen of the Tearling by
ISBN: 9780062290366Recommended by Ashley
Young Kelsea Raleigh was raised in hiding after the death of her mother, Queen Elyssa, far from the intrigues of the royal Keep and in the care of two devoted servants who pledged their lives to protect her. Growing up in a cottage deep in the woods, Kelsea knows little of her kingdom's haunted past . . . or that its fate will soon rest in her hands. -
The Book of Speculation by
ISBN: 9781250054807Recommended by Katie
Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. One June day, an old book arrives on Simon's doorstep, sent by an antiquarian bookseller who purchased it on speculation. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. -
The Martian by
ISBN: 9780804139021Recommended by Katie
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.