Podcasts & Books

7 Summer Reads You Won’t Wanna Put Down

By Claire Plush
8th Jan 2017


Ah summer! You are here and we never, ever, ever want to let you go!

Along with the cocktails and parties and Christmas cheer, when we think of summer we think of chilling the F out with a good book.

What could be better than lying on the beach, a golden tan brewing, an oversized straw hat flopping in the sea breeze, and a juicy book in hand? (In reality, we probably look like an albino starfish left to die on the dry sand but, details.)

There’s a bunch going ‘round, but we picked seven books you won’t wanna put down this summer. Happy reading, folks!

Sweetbitter | Stephanie Danler

Haven’t heard of this page-turner? Where have you been living?! For a debut novel, Sweetbitter is a stunner. You’ll get caught up in the life of 22-year-old Tess as she moves to New York to find herself and lands a job at one of the best restaurants in the city. Inexperienced, she takes on her role as the “new girl”, working gruelling hours, getting wasted, and finding herself in an inevitable love triangle. A coming-of-age tale that’ll have you going on solo beach missions, just so you don’t have anybody interrupting your “reading time”.

The One Who Got Away | Caroline Overington

Okay, so it sounds like some kind of sappy love story, but it’s definitely not. If you struggled to put down Girl On The Trains and Gone Girl, then jot this one down as your next read. The One Who Got Away follows the story of Loren Wynne-Estes, who sets off on a second honeymoon with her lying husband to see if they can save their marriage. But they never get the chance, because Loren disappears. Have we pulled you in? Thought so!

When Breath Becomes Air | Paul Kalanithi

Because not all summer reads need to be light and fluffy, When Breath Becomes Air is a title we reckon you should add to your hit list. This is a super powerful memoir by Paul Kalanithi who was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in his mid 30s, just as he was completing his training as a neurosurgeon. Heartbreaking? Yes. But his reflections about life and our mortality make it totally worth the read.

Tools Of Titans | Tim Ferris

If you loved The 4-Hour Work Week, you need to get your hands wrapped around Tim Ferris’s latest book, Tools Of Titans. Because it’s gold! Basically a culmination of tips and key points from the Tim Ferris Show—where he conducts lengthy interviews with celebs and tech company founders to pro athletes—this is a gem you’ll want to call whenever you’re lacking inspiration in your biz or life.

The Vegetarian | Han Kang

The Vegetarian is difficult to put into words, but it’s a winner of a heap of awards for good reason. Separated into three parts—each told by different characters—The Vegetarian is about an ordinary and timid South Korean housewife (or at least we think) who has a horrible nightmare that leads to her deciding to go vegetarian. Sounds simple enough? But with a controlling husband and a society that fights against rebellion, the choice to lead a non-meat eating existence sets off a chain of events no one could have predicted.

The Assistants | Camille Perri

This is probably the beachiest read of them all. It’s light, funny, and one day on the sand will see you devour it. The Assistants follows Tina Fontana, an exec assistant to the CEO of a media company. She’s a hard-worker, respected, and broke. But everything changes when an expense report goes wrong and sees nearly $20K pop up in Tina’s back account. What’s a girl to do? Well, this one keeps it! But then someone finds out and wants her to do the same for her. And so the story goes…

Modern Lovers | Emma Straub

Another easy page-turner that should totally find its way into your beach bag, Modern Lovers is all about old college friends who’ve grown up, sent their own kids to college, and are hit with the shock of middle-agedom. Living in Brooklyn, they’ve all remained close but things are far from smooth. Trust us, as soon as you’re done with this one you’ll be reaching for another Emma Straub novel.

More of a podcast lover? Check out 10 Podcasts You Need To Listen To Now!

Image credit: Everett Collection

Get our top stories direct to your inbox.

You May Also Like
https://www.theurbanlist.com/brisbane/a-list/7-summer-reads-you-wont-wanna-put-down
www.theurbanlist.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2020-24
56193
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:CY3MC57ZGIPFHVR3OE2T2XVYIK6Q6PWJ
<urn:uuid:e50232dd-1667-43e0-9266-aed98ea43418>
2020-05-27T06:37:26Z
104.28.27.9
text/html
sha1:VOWMSWEQXK5TTT2MICRP3MOID4Y6CO2G
<urn:uuid:b550d467-461e-4cbb-87b3-34cdd97a5bd0>
https://www.theurbanlist.com/brisbane/a-list/7-summer-reads-you-wont-wanna-put-down
response
<urn:uuid:35c02a25-7862-4bd3-808a-616f6883b34b>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-24
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for May/June 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-190.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.16 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/