Best Summer Reading for Adults

The shares its recommendations for adults. Special thanks to the library's Director of Adult Services Lee Fishel Fertitta for the list:

"A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
From a master of contemporary fantasy comes the first novel of a landmark series unlike any you've ever read before. With A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has launched a genuine masterpiece, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill the pages of this magnificent saga, the first volume in an epic series sure to delight fantasy fans everywhere.

"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson
Based on more than 40 interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors and colleagues--the author offers a fascinating look at the co-founder and leading creative force behind the Apple computer company.

"Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared--Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.

"11/22/63" by Stephen King
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President  Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back?

"A Soldier’s Family" by Joanna Trollope
Joanna Trollope returns with a new, deeply moving novel about a soldier's return to family life and the emotional cost of war, duty, and honor. With her trademark intelligence and kind, clear-eyed insight, she shows us a family striving to balance duty and ambition with intimacy and understanding as she illuminates an experience shared by millions of people.

"To the End of the Land" by David Grossman
From one of Israel's most acclaimed writers comes a novel of extraordinary power about family life---the greatest human drama---and the cost of war.

"When She Woke" by Hillary Jordan
In the future, abortion has become a crime as a series of events threatens the existence of the United States. One woman wakes up to discover that her skin color has been changed to red as punishment for having the procedure done. Now she must embark on a dangerous journey in order to find refuge from a hostile and threatening society. (Think “The Scarlet Letter”)

"Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother's death in childbirth and their father's disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics - their passion for the same woman - that will tear them apart.

"Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening - until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots.

"The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes
This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present.

"Faith" by Jennifer Haigh
It is the spring of 2002 and a perfect storm has hit Boston. Across the city's archdiocese, trusted priests have been accused of the worst possible betrayal of the souls in their care. In "Faith," Jennifer Haigh explores the fallout for one devout family, the McGanns.