Planning a Little Labor Day Lounging? Check Out These Must-Reads

Although Labor Day marks the last hurrah for white pants, it is not the end of the season. Until the clock strikes midnight on Sept. 21, it's still summer. And that means there's just enough time to squeeze in another good book atop your favorite lounge chair. (You know, till the heat of summer fades into the heat of fall. We really don't have to squeeze in our outdoor time in the Bay area, but an excuse to lounge around reading is an excuse to lounge around reading.)

To help you find that perfect holiday weekend page-turner, we've cobbled together some best-sellers from The New York Times and the Los Angeles  Times, along with a few staff favorites from summers past. All you need to make your experience complete is a nice cold glass of something yum.

Fiction

• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - A wife mysteriously disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary.
• Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters - A tangled love story spanning 50 years from Hollywood to the Italian coast.
• Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood - An I.R.S. officer and an F.B.I. agent fight corruption and a mutual attraction while investigating a Ponzi scheme.
• The Imperfectionist by Tom Rachman - A series of short stories with interconnected characters woven into the rise and fall of an English-language newspaper in Rome.

Non-fiction

• Wild by Cheryl Strayed - A woman's account of a life-changing 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - The story of Louis Zamperini, a World War II bombardier, POW and Olympian.
• The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer - The author, the son of a single mom, recounts how the flawed men of a local bar became his fathers, teaching him about love, literature, baseball and the drinking life.
• Crazy For The Storm by Norman Ollestad - Alone in a blizzard at night, the author and sole survivor of a single-engine plane crash hit the side of a steep mountain. He tells how he, as an 11-year-old boy, made it down the mountain.

Be sure to tell us in your comments about your favorite summer read!