What’s on Your Summer Reading List?

I could review a book I’ve read…OR I could share with you what some lovely bookish ladies in my life are reading this summer. I am so excited about what is on my reading list for the next couple months and I knew a few people who would be equally excited about their own list.

The following are the five books on the summer reading lists of a series of folks in the writing and publishing world! I have linked to all of them so can check out these titles and add them to your own list! Don’t forget to share about your summer reading list in the comments!

Gina Dalfonzo

Editor of BreakPoint.org and author of One By One, one of the titles on my own list

• Murder in Matera by Helene Stapinski
• Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
• The White Feather Murders by Rachel McMillan
• The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols
• Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman

Chris Jager

Fiction buyer at Baker Book House

• Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
• Beren and Luthien by J.R.R and Christopher Tolkien
• The Writing Desk by Rachel Hauck
• Every Deadly Kiss by Steven James
• Jane of Austin by Hillary Manton Lodge.

Amelia Rhodes

Author of Pray A to Z

• The Road to Paradise by Karen Barnett
• Whole Prayer by Walter Wangerin, Jr.
• A Praying Life by Paul Miller
• Raising a Child who Prays by David Ireland
• Community by Peter Block

Hint: She’s working on a follow up to Pray A to Z. Get excited for that!

Lindsay Gustafson

Owner of Apricot Services

• The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
• How To Lead When You’re Not In Charge by Clay Scroggins
• Keeping Place by Jen Pollock Michel
• The Year of Small Things by Sarah Arthur and Erin F. Wasinger
• Confessions of St Augustine by (Spoiler) Saint Augustine

Ann Byle

Freelance writer and author

• Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke
• Are You Ready to Start Your Own Business? A Sanity Check for Those Who Dream of Self-Employment by Cynthia Baughan Wheaton
• The Amethyst Heart by Penelope J. Stokes
• A writing book – TBD
• Two thrillers by Lee Child

Rachel Watson

Journalist with The Grand Rapids Business Journal

• The Bean Trees: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
• Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity by Bruce Bawer
• One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
• To the Bright Edge of the World: A Novel by Eowyn Ivey
• Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions by Rachel Held Evans

My own list

Literate human

• One by One by Gina Dalfanzo
• The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe
• All Our Wrong Todays  by Elan Mastai
• Reading People by  Ann Bogel
• Silence by Shusaku Endo

Baker Book Houses’s Summer Reading Program

Summer reading programs are not just for kids anymore! Baker Book House has become one of my favorite spots to do work in Grand Rapids and they are offering a great summer program for kids, but an even better one for grown ups!

If you’re in the West Michigan area, stop in and pick up their brochure. If you read 6 books that fall in one of the many categories in the brochure between now and August 26, you will receive a fantastic ceramic travel mug and FREE coffee in that mug for the rest of the year. I’m not kidding, people! Just for reading books! (Jury is out if coffee can be substituted with tea, but regardless, I want the mug!)

Don’t forget to let me know what you’ll be reading in the comments below!