Find your next summer read with recommendations from library staff! Every summer, we make a list of our favorite books we’ve read this past year.
To help you “Imagine Your Story” for this year’s summer reading theme, we’ve also listed some great books based on fairy tales.
Get more reading recommendations and travel the world from home with the Adult Summer Reading Challenge!
Library Staff Summer Reading Suggestions 2020
The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
The Alchemist by Paula Coelho
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Never Look Back by Alison Gaylin
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan
Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer
Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler
Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
(loves coming-of-age novels and historical fiction)
Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes
The Moonshiner’s Daughter by Donna Everhart
The Forgiving Kind by Donna Everhart
The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin
Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen
The Book of Longing by Sue Monk Kidd
The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott
Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
You Me Everything by Catherine Isaac
The Secrets We Keep by Mia Hayes
The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez
Seabreeze Inn by Jan Moran
Lucky’s Beach by Shelley Noble
Summer at Lake Haven by RaeAnne Thayne
On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy
Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter
The Black Ascot by Charles Todd
A Divided Loyalty by Charles Todd
A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd
A Better Man by Louise Penny
Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand
Secret Lives of Dogs by Jana Murphy
What Your Dog Knows by Sophie Collins
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (all by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
(‘s favorite genre is biography/memoir)
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
The Girl With the White Flag by Tomiko Higa
The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+ by Suze Orman
The Taster by V. S. Alexander
The Dutch House by Ann Patchet
The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes
Between You and Me by Susan Wiggs
In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery
A River of Darkness: One Mans Escape From North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa
(enjoys memoirs and biographies)
Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic by Michael McCreary
Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown
The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams
Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks
Finding Chika by Mitch Albom
A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Monk Kidd
Sunday’s Will Never Be The Same by Darrell Waltrip
Racing to the Finish: My Story by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
Educated by Tara Westover
(reads mostly science fiction and YA fantasy)
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Recursion: A Novel by Blake Crouch
Semiosis by Sue Burke
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DeAngelo
The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach To Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky
(prefers science fiction and fantasy)
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
World War Z by Max Brook
Slaugherhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
The Diamond Throne (The Elenium Book 1) by David Eddings
What If? by Randall Munroe
The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
