Summer Reading

Now that summer is unofficially upon us, it's time to tackle some summer reading. My list is a mixture of YA and non-YA. I'm making my list modest, because (1) I already have a lot of half-finished books on my plate, and (2) I often fail to meet even the modest expectations I set for myself. Sigh.

But here's some of the books I'm hoping to devour this summer!

The Turning: What Curiosity Kills by Helen Ellis. Okay, a confession: Helen is one of my best friends, and this is her first YA novel! It's about some prep-school kids in New York City, the first in a series. But these aren't your usual gossip kids. Indeed, some of these kids have a cool

ability: they can turn into cats. Meow.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. The books (this one of the first in a trilogy) that everyone seems to be talking about--and that everyone raves about. Time for me to jump on the bandwagon.

Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick. This YA sounds like a gripping historical novel. A kid sits in an isolated cabin in the Arctic wilderness, his father's frozen corpse beside him. Then, out of the darkness, comes a stranger . . . Isolated cabins, dead bodies, strangers knocking on your door. Sounds terrifying! Sign me up!

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. A new novel by one of my favorite writers. It follows--in non-linerar fashion--the interconnecting lives of a fascinating cast of characters. Hard to summarize, but I've been blown away by excerpts I've read, many of which appeared in The New Yorker. There's even, apparently, a chapter written in the form of a Power Point presentation!

Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers. Okay, this is the book that my book club chose for June. But I've always wanted to read Myers. This one is set at a juvenile detention facility. Should be nice and gritty.

And finally, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg. Definitely not for faint of heart, by all accounts. This is the story of Clegg--a hot-shot young literary agent in New York--and how he got addicted to crack and watched as his world implode around him. It's been getting a lot of press lately. Sounds like just the kind of lurid trainwreck-type story that is hard to resist. Sorry, this one isn't for the kids! But Go Ask Alice is, and I want to read that as well.

Now that I've shared mine, what's on your list?