98 books like Summer

While I am a tremendous fan of Daphne DuMaurier’s uncanny short stories, in particular, The Birds and Don’t Look Now, I reserve my greatest love and admiration for her modern Gothic masterpiece Rebecca.

While Alfred Hitchcock’s film version is justifiably a classic, it cannot capture the richness of DuMaurier’s prose nor the powerful first-person perspective of the narrator, the unnamed newlywed of a wealthy widower who finds herself cursed to always be in the shadow of his first wife, the eponymous Rebecca. It also can’t quite evoke the oppressive atmosphere of Manderley, silent and secretive, ancient and beautiful, the gilded cage of a mansion ruled over by a domineering housekeeper, the unforgettable Mrs. Danvers. 

I was drawn to this book because it’s loaded with atmosphere, and features hill folk like I do, with the difference that McCrumb’s characters inhabit the hills of Tennessee, while mine live in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. I especially like the way she weaves local lore and legends into the story, and how she reveals how the landscape appears to different characters, ranging from a long-ago woman, kidnapped by Indians who escapes and makes her way homeward, to a modern-day non-hillbilly who struggles to re-create her difficult journey. Then, there’s the way McCrumb adds a dash of the supernatural through a character with psychic powers—all of which have been grist to my fictional mill.

I love how Dean takes a creepy cow head on a barn, and builds a compelling mystery around it. The cow head permeates the book, watching, judging, accusing, and shedding tears in the aftermath of a storm—seemingly more alive than wooden. Next to the cow head, snow is the dominant image. It’s a place for fun, as the main character and her close friend create snow angels, but it also carries a warning in the form of a message written in white, and as a blizzard, it knocks out the power in town, making getting around dangerous. Set in New England in the dead of winter, this is a book to read on a dark, frigid night with a hot drink and a blazing fire. 

A routine tale told in a familiar way can be comforting and satisfying.

Embers on the Wind is a different kind of thrill altogether. The story is fresh, the characters are multifaceted, and the storytelling is original. When I picked up this novel, I knew only that it was about a purportedly haunted home that had once been part of the Underground Railroad. I had no idea what I was in for or the wild ride the author would take me on.

Each character perceives reality a bit differently, and those differences make big waves. It's best to be surprised by a novel like this, so I won't say any more than that it's thought-provoking and entertaining at once.

This book is not a memoir per se, but it reads like a memoir.

Such a short book, but so packed with emotion and beautiful writing, as the protagonist attempts to find her place in the world. Although our family situations couldn’t have been more different in terms of the countries in which we grew up, and our family structure, I deeply identified with the protagonist’s feeling that she didn’t belong, wasn’t really part of the family situation in which she found herself. I read it months ago and it has remained with me.

I love this book because it features urbex (urban exploration) and I've done a bit of that myself; some of my previous books were about it. Much of the story is centred around the disused Blackwater Asylum, an enormous complex of wards and treatment rooms with only a skeleton staff of security guards. Everyone associated with Blackwater has their own secrets, from the former patient who lives within the grounds to the property developer with his eye on the land, and we follow Detective Lew Kirby and urban explorer Connie Darke as they try to unravel the crimes that have taken place there. There is mystery aplenty, but what really made this book for me were the locations. The bone jar itself – which I am not going to describe! Go and read the book! – is absolutely stunning and completely original. 

I lived in Lagos for four and a half years, so a mystery in Nigeria grabbed my attention right away. Vanessa’s descriptions are so vivid that I was transported back there on the page.

I loved the insight into the lives of the Nigerwives—women from other countries married to Nigerian men. The power dynamics within the family were fascinating, and even as I wanted to know what happened to the missing Nigerwife, I was just as intrigued by the cultural insights.

Perhaps it says something about where I live now that the best novel I’ve read that takes place in the San Fernando Valley is largely told through an unreliable and chemically addled narrator. Through a self-medicating veteran named Shep and the people he encounters – from a convenience store clerk to an actress he believes to be his daughter – Kinney conjures an often bleak but never hopeless vision of the Valley. In her hands, familiar sights to us Valley residents take on unnerving new contexts, and for any readers unfamiliar with the 818, her brilliant, hypnotic, and compassionate writing will be an exemplary guide.

This story stands out from other children’s books because it is told wordlessly entirely with photographs.

The stuffed bear Hank, as the title suggests, finds an egg and has to figure out where it belongs. The details in the real sets are a joy to see and the story is told effortlessly with wonderful studio photographs.

This picture book with no words and minimal color follows the path of a distracted father and attentive child through a city. Every time I open this book I am reminded to keep my eyes open and pay attention; gather beauty where you find it and share it with others. The illustrator is a master of stories within stories and by the end, I promise, you will want to step outside and pick flowers, even from cracks in the sidewalk.