Adult Summer Reading List

In addition to this being the year I get a better handle of my finances, it’s also the year I learn to love books and reading again. Over the last few years, really through the thick of the pandemic, I got my heart burned by publishing. I worked on two different book proposals that never made it across the threshold and learned a lot about the back end of the publishing world that made me a bit jaded.

I was actually in a Barnes & Noble when I decided that I needed a break from trying to sell a book. I didn’t want to have conversations with my agent. I wanted to go back to the drawing board and back to when walking inside a bookstore was a place of comfort, instead of comparison.

As the summer approaches I wanted to give myself some book related challenges. Over the next 13 weeks I’m going to visit 17 bookstores in Connecticut (where we live) and share videos about each. It’s a bookstore challenge, but also a way to practice long distance driving more. But, as I was thinking more and more about this challenge, I started to miss that end of year feel where as you stepped out of school (and that specific grade level) for the last time, you got handed a list of books that would prepare you for the next stage of your life.

I was that kid who got really excited for the summer reading list. My freshman year of high school reading A Separate Peace by John Knowles became a core memory of becoming a “high schooler.” I discovered my fascination with the inner workings of politics when I read Hardball by Chris Matthews in my AP Government class. Reading Anxious People by Fredrik Backman just last year reminded me I really like humor, witty writing, and fiction.

There’s a lot happening in our current world that can feel overwhelming and impossible to solve. Sometimes it’s nice to slip into someone else’s world, how they’re fixing their problems, or simply feel like reading a book is actually getting you one day closer to the next grade in your life. In an effort to capture that kind of summer, I’ve pulled together a Summer Reading List. Pick 1 book from the whole list or a book from each category. There are no rules or book reports due, just a wish that you find in a book the summer what I’ve found in so many over the years.

Adult Summer Reading List

CLASSICS

MEMOIRS + BIOGRAPHIES

ROMANCE

Relationships, Sex, and More

FINDING YOUR CREATIVE VOICE

PERSONAL GROWTH

BIZ DEV