TUNSTALL SUMMER READING
. GET READY.
ABUNDANCE EZRA KLEIN
NONFICTION
Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance.
ALL THE KING’S MEN ROBERT PENN WARREN
FICTION
The classic, ever-relevant story of a backcountry lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power—American literature's definitive political novel.
ANXIOUS PEOPLE FREDRIK BACKMAN
FICTION
Anxious People is a “quirky, big-hearted novel….Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, this odd group will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
ATMOSPHERE TAYLOR JENKINS REID
FICTION
Joan Goodwin is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.
BIRNAM WOOD ELEANOR CATTON
FICTION
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. Birnam Wood, a guerilla gardening collective, sees an opportunity to seize the land and turn a profit. But billionaire Robert Lemoine also has plans: to claim the land for an end-times bunker. When the two plans collide, can the two trust each other to play nice, or will self interest lead to betrayal?
THE BOSTON GIRL ANITA DIAMANT
FICTION
Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, the spirited daughter of an immigrant Jewish family, born in 1900 to parents who were unprepared for America and its effect on their three daughters. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, to finding the love of her life, eighty-five-year-old Addie recounts her adventures with humor and compassion for the naïve girl she once was.
CHALLENGER ADAM HIGGINBOTHAM
NONFICTION
On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew. The Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth-century history. This is the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that flows like a thriller.
THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS HARUKI MURAKAMI
FICTION
We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves.
A DOG’S PURPOSE BRUCE CAMERON
FICTION
A Dog’s Purpose shares the soulful and surprising story of one devoted dog who finds the meaning of his own existence through the lives of the humans he teaches to laugh and love. Heartwarming, insightful, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it is not only the emotional and hilarious story of a dog's many lives, but also a dog's-eye commentary on human relationships and the bonds between man and man's best friend. This moving and beautifully crafted story teaches us that love never dies, that our true friends are always with us, and that every creature on earth is born with a purpose.
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER
FICTION
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS JOHN GREEN
NONFICTION
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.
FIVE LITTLE PIGS AGATHA CHRISTIE
FICTION
Hercule Poirot must solve a baffling case from the past in this classic mystery. Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, yet there were five other suspects: Philip Blake (the stockbroker) who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist) who stayed at home; Elsa Greer (the three-time divorcee) who had roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess) who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister) who cried “wee wee wee” all the way home. It is sixteen years later, but Hercule Poirot just can’t get that nursery rhyme out of his mind….
GHOST RUNNER BILL JONES
NONFICTION
John Tarrant, the extraordinary man whom nobody could stop. As a hapless teenage boxer in the 1950s, he'd been paid £17. When he wanted to run, he was banned for life. His amateur status had been compromised. Forever. Now he was fighting back, gate-crashing races all over Britain. No number on his shirt. No friends in high places. Soon he would be a record-breaker, one of the greatest long-distance runners the world had ever seen.
GIMPEL THE FOOL AND OTHER STORIES ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
FICTION
Isaac Bashevis Singer's first collection of stories is a landmark work that has attracted international acclaim since it was first published in 1957. The title story follows the exploits of Gimpel, a baker who is universally deceived but who declines to retaliate against his tormentors. Gimpel and the protagonists of the other stories in this volume all inhabit the distinctive pre–World War II ghettos of Poland and, beyond that, the larger world created by Singer's unforgettable prose.
A GOOD WALK SPOILED JOHN FEINSTEIN
NONFICTION
Traveling with the golfers on the PGA Tour, Feinstein gets inside the heads of the game's greatest players as well as its struggling wannabes. Meet superstars like Nick Price, who nailed a fifty-foot putt at the seventeenth to win the British Open, and Paul Azinger, who marked his return from a bout with cancer with an emotional appearance at the Buick Open. In golf, Feinstein relates, the line that separates triumph from disappointment is thin. "One week you've discovered the secret to the game; the next week you never want to play it again."
THE GREAT SANTINI PAT CONROY
FICTION
Step into the powerhouse life of Bull Meecham. He’s all Marine—fighter pilot, king of the clouds, and absolute ruler of his family. Lillian is his wife—beautiful, southern-bred, with a core of velvet steel. Without her cool head, her kids would be in real trouble. Ben is the oldest, a born athlete whose best never satisfies the big man. Ben’s got to stand up, even fight back, against a father who doesn’t give in—not to his men, not to his wife, and certainly not to his son. Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy’s most explosive character—a man you should hate, but a man you will love.
HORSE GERALDINE BROOKS
FICTION
This heart-pounding novel about a famous antebellum champion thoroughbred named Lexington and his talented, enslaved trainer circles two tracks, one historical, one contemporary, to highlight the ongoing scourge of racism in America. A testament to the intelligence and humanity of animals, a stinging rebuke of racist and abusive humans, and a study of how the past gets recorded, remembered, and remade . . . anyone who ever grew up loving horses, anyone who dearly loves an animal, will find a cornucopia of riches in this novel..
HOUSE OF THE SCORPION NANCY FARMER
FICTION
Matt Alacrán wasn’t born. He was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, the drug-lord ruler of the country of Opium. Most people hate and fear clones like Matt—except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, and realizes escape is his only chance to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom.
HOW TO SAY BABYLON SAFIYA SINCLAIR
NONFICTION
This is the stunning story of the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet. Her father believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience. He forbade almost everything: no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Books and education were her respite. They helped her find her voice, break free, and overcome her father’s violence.
HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER KRISTEN PERRIN
FICTION
For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.
KLARA AND THE SUN KAZUO ISHIGURO
FICTION
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
MAKE YOUR BED WILLIAM H. MCRAVEN
FICTION
On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better.
THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED APRIL HENRY
FICTION
Gabie drives a Mini Cooper. She also works part-time as a delivery girl at Pete's Pizza. One night, Kayla―another delivery girl―goes missing. To her horror, Gabie learns that the supposed kidnapper had asked if the girl in the Mini Cooper was working. Gabie can't move beyond the fact that Kayla's fate was really meant for her. She becomes obsessed with finding Kayla and teams up with Drew, who also works at Pete's. Together they set out to prove that Kayla isn't dead―and hopefully to find her before she is.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE RON POWERS
NONFICTION
From the Bedlam Asylum to the eugenics era to the anti-psychiatry movement to the current landscape in which too many families struggle alone to manage afflicted loved ones, Powers addresses our fears and myths about mental illness in America. Braided with that history is the moving story of Powers's sons’ schizophrenia. A blend of history, memoir, and current affairs , this is a thought-provoking look at a dreaded illness that has long been misunderstood.
THE PHOENIX CROWN KATE QUINN
FICTION
San Francisco, 1906. Two women—Gemma, a fading soprano, and Suling, a Chinatown embroideress—seek to change their lives. Henry Thornton, a railroad magnate whose antique collection includes the legendary Phoenix Crown, may be their savior. But when an earthquake devastates the city, Thornton vanishes, leaving behind a mystery. Five years later, the Phoenix Crown reappears at a Paris costume ball, pulling Gemma and Suling together for one final quest for justice.
RICH DAD, POOR DAD ROBERT KIYOSAKI
NONFICTION
This classic still ranks as the #1 Personal Finance book of all time. And although 25 years have passed since it was first published, readers will find that little in the book has changed. While so much in our world is changing a high speed, the lessons about money and the principles of Rich Dad Poor Dad haven’t changed. Today, as money continues to play a key role in our daily lives, the messages in Robert Kiyosaki’s international bestseller are more timely and more important than ever.
ROUND IRELAND WITH A FRIDGE TONY HAWKS
NONFICTION
An international bestseller, Round Ireland with a Fridge is a classic travel adventure. Tony Hawks made a bet that he would travel throughout the Emerald isle with a compact refrigerator in tow. This is the travelogue of all the mayhem he finds along the way.
THE SMALL AND THE MIGHTY SHARON MCMAHON
NONFICTION
Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW WADE DAVIS
NONFICTION
In April 1982, Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis—people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead. Drawn into a world of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the mystique to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement.
SILVER NITRATE SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA
FICTION
From the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film—and awakens one woman’s hidden powers.
STARTER VILLAIN JOHN SCALZI
FICTION
Charlie's life is stuck. He’s a divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell. Then his uncle Jake dies, leaving Charlie his supervillain empire, complete with a volcano lair. But being a supervillain isn't all lasers and lava. Jake's enemies—rich, ruthless predators backed by corporations—are coming for Charlie. It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains.
SURELY YOU’RE JOKING, MR. FEYNMAN RICHARD FEYNMAN
NONFICTION
Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that “can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist,” Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets―and much more of an eyebrowraising nature. In his stories, Feynman’s life shines through in all its eccentric glory―a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.
THE TERMINAL LIST JACK CARR
FICTION
A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team in this ripped-from-theheadlines political thriller that is “so powerful, so pulse-pounding, so well-written —rarely do you read a debut novel this good.”
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
FICTION
Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. The reader follows Amory as he falls in love with Isabelle Borgé, a wealthy young debutante; a narcissistic flapper named Rosalind Connage; and Eleanor, a reckless young atheist. An autobiographical novel and a portrait of the dawning Jazz Age, This Side of Paradise launched F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career and turned him into an overnight literary sensation.
THUNDERSTRUCK ERIK LARSON
NONFICTION
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
TO BE TAUGHT, IF FORTUNATE BECKY CHAMBERS
FICTION
In the future, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the galaxy transform themselves. Ariadne is one such explorer. On a mission to survey four other worlds, she sleeps while in transit, and wakes each time with different features. But life back on Earth is also changing. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the wonders and dangers of her journey, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.
VANISHING TREASURES KATHERINE RUNDELL
NONFICTION
The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.
WATERSHIP DOWN RICHARD ADAMS
FICTION
A worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Watership Down is one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England, this stirring tale follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey from their native Sandleford Warren, through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, and toward the dream of a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
THE WIDE WIDE SEA HAMPTON SIDES
NONFICTION
The Wide Wide Sea is at once a ferociouslypaced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration. In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe to Hawaii.
WORLD WAR Z MAX BROOKS
FICTION
Max Brooks presents a gripping, fictionalized oral history of a global zombie apocalypse, told through the voices of survivors and key players, offering a chilling and realistic account of humanity's desperate struggle against the undead.