These recommendations for 2007 summer reading, gathered by Utah booksellers, librarians and yours truly, fall somewhere in the middle. Most of us don't want to struggle through Ulysses when it's 98 degrees and bugs are swarming nearby. But we don't all want mindless pulp, either.
These titles, almost all published within the past six months, cover genres and subject matter for a variety of tastes. Most are under 350 pages; you won't pull a muscle carrying them to your hammock. In their own way, they're all page-turners, offering propulsive narratives about love, or murder, or natural disasters, or high school. Several explore the shattering effects of 9/11. A few are best-sellers, but others are books you may not have heard of. Yet.
Here they are. Hope you find something you like.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Harcourt, $22).
This slender novel is the tale of Changez, a young, Princeton-educated Pakistani who enjoys the high life of a New York City banker until Sept. 11, when he suddenly discovers that America isn't so welcoming toward a dark-skinned Muslim with a beard. As Changez finds himself under increased scrutiny and subject to physical threats, he grows bitter and resentful of his adopted country. By its end this story, narrated to a nameless American over dinner at a cafe in Pakistan, reads like an all-too-timely thriller.
Silent in the Grave by Deanna
Raybourn (Mira, $21.95).
"To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor." So begins Raybourn's clever debut, a Victorian mystery about a London widow investigating the murder of her husband while finding surprising romance with a private detective. Mary Moore of the Davis County Library calls the novel "the librarians' favorite book this month - the one we recommend to each other."
The White Cascade by Gary Krist (Henry Holt, $26).
Krist is a novelist who brings his storytelling skills to this nonfiction account of a 1910 avalanche that buried two stranded passenger trains in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. The disaster came two years before the sinking of the Titanic and killed almost 100 people, making it the deadliest avalanche in American history. Krist relies on passengers' journals and other documents to illuminate his real-life characters and re-create the tragedy in chilling detail. The New York Times writes, "[Krist] slowly builds a picture of massing natural forces and helpless humanity, brought closer and closer to catastrophe with each tick of the clock."
The Invention of Hugo
Cabret by Brian Selznick
(Scholastic Press, $22.99).
Staffers at Sam Weller's bookstore in Salt Lake City rave about this inventive young-adult tale, which should satisfy Harry Potter fans of all ages until the final Potter book arrives in July. At the turn of the 20th century, Hugo is a 12-year-old orphan and petty thief living in a Paris railway station. Hugo is fascinated with a humanlike robot that belonged to his late father and that may hold the key to an intricate mystery if he can only get it to function. Selznick intersperses his text with rich charcoal drawings that make passages of the book read like a graphic novel. "Here is a true masterpiece," says Publishers Weekly, "an artful blending of narrative, illustration and cinematic technique."
The Overlook by Michael
Connelly (Little, Brown, $21.99).
To his many fans, Connelly needs no introduction. But here's a reminder anyway: His new crime thriller hit bookstores last week, and it's getting good reviews. Serialized last year in The New York Times, this tale follows L.A. detective Harry Bosch as he breaks in a new partner while investigating what may be a threat to national security. Booklist says, "Unlike other Bosch novels, which effortlessly mix action with the hero's inner struggles, this one unfolds like an episode of '24,' pounding its way relentlessly to a surprising conclusion."
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass (Anchor House, $14.95).
DawnAnn Owens of The King's English Bookshop recommends this followup by the author of the award-winning novel Three Junes. The book's central character is a pastry chef who leaves New York and her faltering marriage for a job in New Mexico. Glass also balances subplots about two men disagreeing about whether to adopt a child and a young woman struggling to regain her life after losing her memory in an accident. "As their trajectories converge on Sept. 11, each character's decisions are either confirmed or dispelled in the face of tragedy," Owens writes. "A compelling examination of the seemingly trivial actions that affect the course of one's life."
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle (Ecco, $19.95).
This slight, frenetic comic novel about a high-school crush has all the cleverness and wit you'd expect from someone who used to be a writer for "The Simpsons." Tom Perrotta, author of Election, calls it "an instant classic, right up there with great end-of-school landmarks like 'American Graffiti' and 'Dazed and Confused.' " The book's title refers to an opening-chapter, graduation-speech declaration by debate-team captain Denis Cooverman that might have been a sweet moment if not for the fact that Beth, a cheerleader, has only the vaguest idea who Denis is. Doyle then chronicles the riotous graduation night that follows, complete with unexpected situations, colorful characters and razor-sharp dialogue. Juvenile and silly, yes, but darn funny.
Falling Man by Don DeLillo (Scribner, $26).
On a more serious note, can you take one more book about 9/11? A lawyer escapes from the wreckage of the World Trade Center with the briefcase of another survivor, then reconciles with his estranged wife and young son. Over the next days and weeks and months, all of them struggle to process the horrific event. DeLillo tackles this defining moment in recent history head on, taking the reader into the towers and even into the mind of one of the hijackers. It's an audacious approach, and maybe too tender a topic for some. But many reviewers are calling Falling Man the first great novel about Sept. 11. No, it's not exactly escapist reading, but it's hard to put down. Entertainment Weekly asks, "What does DeLillo have to tell us about 9/11? Nothing. And everything."
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* BRANDON GRIGGS can be contacted at griggs@sltrib.com or 801-257-8689. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
