Need to check off the “recommended by a librarian” activity on your MidPointe Summer Reading Map? These suggestions are 100% approved by our staff for adults to enjoy! Share your recommendations with us on social media!
FICTION
“American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins
Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, reasonably comfortable. Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy, two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: “Where We Come From” by Oscar Cásares
“Big Summer” by Jennifer Weiner
Six years after a fight ended their friendship, Drue Cavanaugh walks back into Daphne Berg’s life with a massive favor to ask — she wants Daphne to be the maid of honor at her summer wedding.
Available formats: Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: “Summer Rental” by Mary Kay Andrews
“Camino Winds” by John Grisham
Just as Bruce Cable’s Bay Books is preparing for the return of bestselling author Mercer Mann, Hurricane Leo veers from its predicted course and heads straight for the island. The hurricane is devastating: homes and condos are leveled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded, and a dozen people lose their lives. One of the apparent victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce’s and an author of thrillers. But the nature of Nelson’s injuries suggests that the storm wasn’t the cause of his death: he has suffered several suspicious blows to the head.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: Cemetery Road : a novel / Greg Iles
“The Giver of Stars” by Jojo Moyes
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. Though they face all kinds of dangers, they’re committed to their job–bringing books to people who have never had any, sharing the gift of learning that will change their lives.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek ” by Kim Michele Richardson
“The Wedding Dress” by Danielle Steel
For richer or for poorer, in cramped apartments and grand mansions, the treasured wedding dress made in Paris in 1928 follows each generation into their new lives, and represents different hopes for each of them, as they marry very different men. From inherited fortunes at the outset to self-made men and women, the wedding dres s remains a cherished constant for the women who wear it in each generation and forge a destiny of their own. It is a symbol of their remaining traditions and the bond of family they share in an ever-changing world.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: “The Grace Kelly Dress” by Brenda Janowitz
“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the ”Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark , th e so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gullls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.
Available formats: Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
You might also like: “The Scent Keeper” by Erica Bauermeister
NON-FICTION
“Becoming” by Michelle Obama
An intimate memoir by the former First Lady chronicles the experiences that have shaped her remarkable life, from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago through her setbacks and achievements in the White House.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
“Educated” by Tara Westover
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
Available formats: Print, Large Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
“The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson
The Splendid and the Vile is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports — some released only recently –Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family.
Available formats: Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
“Untamed” by Glennon Doyle
Part intimate memoir and part galvanizing wake-up call, Glennon Doyle shows women how they can begin to trust themselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with their bodies, honor their anger and heartbreak, and unleash their truest, wildest instincts so that they become women who can finally look at themselves and say: There She Is.
Available formats: Print, Book on CD, CloudLibrary, Ohio Digital Library
