2015+Summer+Reading+Staff+picks

//The Nightingale// by Kristin Hannah A moving story of two French sisters and their experiences during World War II. A fast read that requires having tissues handy at the end. Highly recommended.
 * Lynn Hindermyer (and Randi Wall) recommend... **

//China Dolls// by Lisa See A good perspective of an historical time of war and entertainment in our country and a bird's eye view of the Chinese culture. A universal perspective on friendship and family relationships.
 * Lisa Paul (and Randi Wall) recommend... **

// The Girl You Left Behind // by Jojo Moyes France, 1916. Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans, Edouard's portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant.
 * Lisa Paul recommends... **

//Ghettoside// by Jill Leovy True crime - An in-depth look at homicide in South Central Los Angeles and how the absence of law enforcement perpetuates crime in low socio-economic neighborhoods. Not a light read but an important one.
 * Aileen Clearkin recommends... **

//The Girl on the Train// by Paula Hawkins Fiction - If you liked Gone Girl, you'll love this one. It's a quick paced page-turner with lots of twists and turns -- a good murder mystery.
 * Aileen Clearkin recommends... **

//Everything I Never Told You// by Celeste Ng Literary - A Chinese-American family struggles with their identity and what it means to fit in. Set in suburban Ohio in the 1970s, daughter Lydia goes missing and her family is left trying to understand who she was.
 * Aileen Clearkin recommends... **

// Tinker at Pilgrim's Creek // by Annie Dillard A series of essays from Dillard's daily life at her home by a creek in the Blue Mountains of Virgina, sort of like Thoreau's Walden Pond, but less of a slog - with startlingly gruesome and laugh-out-loud funny observations, combined with really beautiful meditative writing. It makes you wish you were her best friend and you could go walking in the woods with her and look at frogs.
 * Diana Jordan recommends... **

// The Interestings // by Meg Wolitzer Chronicles the lives of five friends who meet at a summer camp for exceptional kids. Love, loss, betrayal, the quest for identity-- this book reads like real life.
 * Lyndie Dubbs recommends... **

//Snow Falling on Cedars// by David Guterson Set on an island in the straits of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands.
 * Lyndie Dubbs recommends... **

//The Boys in the Boat// by Daniel James Brown Nine Americans and their quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
 * Cathy Pray recommends... **