SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It's summer. You might be running out of time to complete your 2024 reading goals. Let us help you pick your next book. Books We Love, NPR's list of best reads, has lots of recommendations, and here are some fiction favorites from our colleagues.
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NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: I am Neda Ulaby. I cover arts and culture for National Public Radio. I picked the novel "Swift River" by Essie Chambers. It's a book about a teenage girl named Diamond, who's stuck in a fading New England mill town. She's the only Black person who lives there after her dad mysteriously disappears. It turns out the town, Swift River, holds an entire hidden history of Black migration, marginalization and imagination.
I came to "Swift River" because the author executive produced a documentary I love called "Descendant" that came out in 2022, about the last known ship to bring enslaved people to the U.S. Like that movie, this novel is poetic and propulsive. I was entranced by the places it took me and the people it introduced me to.
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CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE: My name is Christina Cala. I'm the senior producer of Code Switch. And the book I want to recommend is "Birding With Benefits." It is amazing. It's about this woman who's a soon-to-be empty nester. She's a few years out of a divorce, and she's having a year of yes. She is trying new things. She's really opening herself up to discovery, and she decides to help this guy out who she thinks needs a fake girlfriend but actually needs a partner for a birding contest, and she ends up falling in love with birding, learning so much about herself.
CALA: It is this very sweet, tender book that has just amazing characters, and, you know, you might find yourself falling in love with birding, in addition to falling in love with these characters.
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JENNIFER VANASCO, BYLINE: I'm Jennifer Vanasco. I am an editor and reporter on the Culture Desk. I'm recommending "A Short Walk Through A Wide World." It's a novel by Douglas Westerbeke.
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VANASCO: Summer, to me, always means travel, and this book follows a special traveler. Her name is Aubry Tourvel. When the book starts, she's 9 years old, and we meet her in 1885 in Paris. She finds this puzzle ball, and it changes her life. It gives her a kind of illness. She has to keep moving forever. Too long in any one town, and she'll bleed to death. So her life is all travel and adventure - deserts, forests, oceans, the great marketplaces and cities of the world.
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VANASCO: And over many decades, she meets all types of people. And if you travel, this will seem familiar. Sometimes, those people become her travel soulmates. They make an instant connection. Sometimes, she's desperately lonely, even though thousands surround her.
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VANASCO: This is a ravishing book. It explores not only enchanting places but also who Aubrey is, who we all are, really, because it's also kind of about growing up and becoming a full person.
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JEANINE HERBST, BYLINE: Hi, I'm Jeanine Herbst. I'm a news anchor for newscast. The book I'm recommending is "The Women" by Kristin Hannah. It centers on a young nursing student, Frankie McGrath, who grew up in the 1960s in a conservative, sheltered and wealthy family. She had a comfy life in California, and her parents wanted her married, but Frankie wanted more.
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HERBST: So with her brother serving in the Vietnam War, she hastily decided to join the Army Nurse Corps. I love how the book traces Frankie's transformation, leaving her predictable and safe life for the chaos and the danger of a war zone, and it doesn't shy away from the horrors of war, from the operating room to the front lines.
Along the way, Frankie learns about choices and consequences, taking control and love, tangled love. And when she gets home, she learns about America's opposition to the war and her family's embarrassment about her service.
I also love that this book shines a light on the women who served as nurses during the wars. You often only hear about the male soldiers, but women were there, too, and they deserve the spotlight.
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ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Hey. What's up? My name is Andrew Limbong. I am a reporter on the Culture Desk and host of NPR's Book Of The Day podcast. The book I want to talk about is a novel called "Victim" by Andrew Boryga. This book is about an inspiring writer and journalist named Javi Perez. He's from the Bronx. And he realizes he can kind of fudge some truths about his background to get ahead, you know?
And it works. You - he finds himself in these rooms where they talk about, like, classist barriers and trauma and past harms and stuff like that. But then he gets kind of disillusioned. Quote, "I knew that I was unofficially and perhaps begrudgingly the underprivileged minority correspondent who was tapped to write sentimentally about tragic things that happened to me or to other people with melanin whenever they happened to align with the news cycle."
It's a pretty funny and relatable takedown of the writing industrial complex, but it's done with a lot of empathy for everyone involved.
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LAUREN MIGAKI, BYLINE: If a '90s rom-com grew up and went to therapy, this sparkling book would be the result.
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MIGAKI: My name's Lauren Migaki. I'm a senior producer on the education desk, and I'm recommending "How To End A Love Story" by Yulin Kuang.
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MIGAKI: After penning a popular YA series, Helen Zhang gets a seat in the writer's room, where it's being adapted into a TV show. Unfortunately, Grant Shepard is also one of the writers in that room. Grant was the charming homecoming king at Helen's high school, where Helen was awkward and introverted. Grant's also the reason Helen's sister is dead, kind of.
It's been years since the accident, but the writer's room reopens old wounds, and it forces Helen and Grant to be vulnerable with each other. The two begin a present-day romance that's sexy and tender, even as Helen wrestles with their past. This book is a raised glass to second chances and late bloomers.
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SIMON: The recommendations again - "How To End A Love Story," "Victim," "The Women," "A Short Walk Through A Wide World," "Birding With Benefits" and "Swift River." For the full list of books we love so far this year, you can visit npr.org/summerbooks.
(SOUNDBITE OF HENRY CONNICK JR.'S "AUTUMN IN NEW YORK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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