Sometimes, picking out a book to read is half the battle. But don't fret, little bookworm! The Inlander staff and plenty of the region's bookish types have compiled this list of recommendations for your summer reading list.
WE'LL PRESCRIBE YOU A CAT
This bestselling novel by Japanese writer Syou Ishida was recently translated into English (its sequel gets an English release in September), and it's an endearing, breezy read that'll warm any cat lover's heart. Told in a series of five short, interconnected stories, We'll Prescribe You a Cat centers on a Kyoto clinic that recommends its patients try a dose of feline cuteness to cure their woes, from job-induced stress to detached parenting. While these stories certainly pull heartstrings, they also offer a healthy reminder to slow down and enjoy each little moment with loved ones — especially those with fur. (CHEY SCOTT)
TOMATOLAND
Ever wonder why grocery store tomatoes taste so bad? Investigative food reporter Barry Estabrook explains why, but not before careening through the Peruvian desert to find an all-but-extinct heirloom, exploring what Italian food was like before colonizers found tomatoes in the New World, and exposing the lethal work conditions of Immokalee, Florida, sometimes called the tomato capital of the world. If you care about pizza or people, you care about this book. (If you don't, what are you doing with your life?) I think about Tomatoland every time I'm in the produce aisle. (EB)
GET ME THROUGH THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES
Sometimes, panic hits. Headlines blare. Families break. Jobs end. Your dog farts. You don't know what to do, but the most you can focus on is getting through the next five minutes. Few people are as acquainted with this anxiety as Atlantic writer James Parker. His cure? Look around you, and sing to it. In the face of big feelings, Parker started penning "odes" — that is, lyrical exercises in gratitude for the ordinary and sometimes obscure, like squirrels, pull-ups or running in movies. These sacrilegious songs anchored the back of the Atlantic magazine for years. Now, they're all in one place, collected into an anthology that's as easy to grab as a cigarette or a chocolate bar when you're feeling an inescapable need to cope. (ELIZA BILLINGHAM)
WOLF LAND
This is the second of three books on the subject that wolfer turned wolf advocate Carter Niemeyer has written about wolf reintroduction and wolves in Idaho. Wolf Land reads like a memoir grounded in experience and science and is aware of the complexities and complications that exist where wolves and humans meet. Written with humility and humor, this book shines light on one of the most contentious debates that exists in the American West and does so with compassion for all life. (CMARIE FUHRMAN, Inlander columnist and author)
ANGEL SHARPENING ITS BEAK
Always redefining and refining the craft of poetry, Michael McGriff once again presses together the sacred and the profane into the vast landscape of art and creates a new landscape where the possibility of language is realized. McGriff sees the lives of those often ignored, unseen and passed by — beings human and non — and with the care of a poet offers them a light of their own. This collection is a gift of empathy, kindness and craft so necessary in our world now as they have always been. (CF)
PIRANESI
If you're a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia, Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is like the grown-up version of that classic tale with a bit of a twist. Almost the entirety of the story takes place in The House, a mysterious system of tunnels and hallways in which Piranesi (our protagonist) and a few other curious beings reside. Piranesi is confined to a world filled with nothing but statues, which represent a greater reality of which he is simultaneously ignorant. (Ring ring! The Allegory of the Cave is calling!) Piranesi begins to piece together a life he once had, and his only friend in The House, named The Other, tries to suppress those memories and keep Piranesi under his control. I urge you to push past your early confusion with this one to find the meaning that lies underneath. (MADISON PEARSON)
A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT
This Becky Chambers novel is essentially if the phrase "everything is gonna be OK" were a book, the embodiment of a tender kiss on the forehead, and a brief respite from a stressful world. A lonely tea monk and a robot travel together and answer the question: In a world where people have everything they want, does having more matter? Once you begin this cozy read, I dare you not to tear up at least a little bit at the gentle friendship between the two completely different creatures. (MP)
HOW FAR THE LIGHT REACHES: A LIFE IN TEN SEA CREATURES
This is a book for those of you who have always wondered what sea creature you would be but are too serious to just take a Buzzfeed quiz. In their debut novel, science writer Sabrina Imbler takes readers on a deep dive into the ocean as they muse about family, relationships and their coming of age through 10 different essays. When I first heard about this book, I thought the concept was fun, if a little cheesy, but in each essay Imbler pulled me deeper by adeptly weaving aspects of their life into thoughtful descriptions of lesser-known sea creatures. For example, in one chapter Imbler compares their relationship with their mother to a starving deep-sea octopus, graneledone boreopacifica, which clung to a rocky wall for four-and-a-half years protecting its eggs until they hatched. The octopus died. Imbler's maternal relationship is shaky. And I may have cried. (COLTON RASANEN)
SORROWLAND
Rivers Solomon's third novel Sorrowland is equal parts science fiction, horror and historical commentary. It's the kind of book you might pick up after dinner to read the first few chapters and then suddenly find yourself racing to finish it the following morning. The story follows Vern, a seven-month-pregnant and nearly blind woman, who escapes from the religious compound where she grew up. She doesn't get very far into the surrounding woods before she gives birth to twins, Howling and Feral. She manages to survive for a few years, but as danger from her home threatens her family, she sets out to learn the truth of her upbringing. (CR)
THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
This 2003 Erik Larson book takes a novelistic nonfiction dive into 1890s Chicago and the 1893 World's Fair. Half the time we nerd out on the architectural marvels imagined to one-up the World's Fair that brought Paris the Eiffel Tower in 1889 — including the original Ferris Wheel, which was so large each car held more than 40 people. But the real drama arises from the simultaneous rise of the titular serial killer H.H. Holmes, who conned, tortured and murdered some of those drawn to the city for the work. Since we've been waiting a decade for the Leonardo DiCaprio/Martin Scorsese movie adaptation (which could be back on track now?) go ahead and read the book. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)
FOURTH WING / THE EMPYREAN SERIES
Setting: A war college for dragon riders. Strong main female character: Violet. Leaned-on fantasy trope: Smutty shadow daddy. (This series contains adult content.) Plot: Training to fight outside evil that's worse than you knew, only to realize you may need to overcome the evil within. Cursed element: Each book ends with a cliffhanger of epic proportions. The third, Onyx Storm, just came out in January, and we have no idea when Rebecca Yarros plans to write the next one. Fair warning: This may be a gateway drug to all the ampersand smutty fantasy series out there. (SW)
PROJECT HAIL MARY
This is the best Andy Weir novel. Full stop. Ideal as an audiobook for reasons I can't tell you. But if you loved his crass humor and science coming to the rescue in The Martian, this is even better. A "failed" academic turned high school science teacher wakes up on a spaceship with a mission to save the planet, but has to piece his memories back together to figure out what he's supposed to be doing. This is the perfect summer to read it, since early next year we'll see Ryan Gosling star in the film adaptation. (SW)
FEEDING GHOSTS
It's worth setting aside a weekend to immerse yourself in Tessa Hulls' masterpiece of writing and illustration, which just won the Pulitzer Prize. With fluid drawings that animate indescribable emotions, Hulls explores how her grandmother's torment during the Chinese Communist Revolution oozed through the generations. Her relentless interrogation of this history — and her own perceptions of it — reveals essential truths about the stories that individuals, families and societies tell to explain, defend and reimagine themselves. This isn't a light read, but it's a necessary one. (TARA KARR ROBERTS, Inlander columnist and Moscow-based author)
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR
A short but powerful novella co-authored by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This is How You Lose the Time War falls into the science fiction and fantasy genres. With time travel weaving throughout the book, Agents Red and Blue attempt to undo the work of the other, twisting the timeline to their own side's agenda. Communication between the two starts off taunting, but will it soften over time? A great read with beautiful language and a story that focuses on the relationship between two women who find that they may have more in common with their immediate enemy than their distant allies. (BEE REISWIG)
IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER
OK, OK, so I'm not the right person to ask for lighter-fare beach reads. Nonetheless, this slim, surprising novel — narrated by a zombie who is adjusting to her new subhuman form — feels like the right fit for summer. The book starts oceanside, after all, with a hilarious goodbye to the narrator's severed arm, which is sent out to sea in a funeral pyre that also includes a fellow zombie's perished finger. The physical losses that entertain us at the start of the book become more weighted as we learn of the greater losses happening — the narrator's grief concerning a lost lover, and the yawning hunger that signals a departure from humanity. This book is poetry — bloody, gutsy, oozing, love-drenched zombie poetry — and will make a great summer companion for anyone experiencing life-altering change. (SHARMA SHIELDS, Spokane Public Library writing education specialist and author)
THE UNHONEYMOONERS
If you like an enemies-to-lovers plot with lots of witty banter and an easy summer read, this is IT! I soared through this book. I started it on a plane ride, got home at midnight and did not go to sleep until I finished it. Picture this: Everyone gets sick at your sister's wedding except you and your archnemesis. Now you have to go on your sister's honeymoon with him because you don't want the trip to go to waste. Hijinks ensue, feelings grow, and maybe your luck starts to change. (ALINA MURCAR, Spokane Public Library marketing and communications manager)
SUPREMACY: AI, CHATGPT, AND THE RACE THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD
Artificial Intelligence is real, confusing, and is soon about to become a part of daily lives. This book explores the two major companies on either side of the Atlantic that are shaping and developing the latest AI programs — OpenAI and Deepmind — from their origins through to their acquisitions by Microsoft and Google respectively. This book helps cut through the noise surrounding this software and alerts readers to the real threat of artificial intelligence that its top creators are ignoring: the profit-driven spread of flawed and biased technology into industries, education, media and more. (SEAN C. KUDRNA, Spokane Public Library clerical assistant)
AGENTS OF DREAMLAND
A government agent investigates a cult with the help of a clairvoyant interdimensional sage woman in order to delay an imminent alien invasion. There are a million things to love in this impressively short book. At 120 pages, it manages to incorporate astrophysics, conspiracy theories and Lovecraftian horror all at once. It's the first in the series titled The Tinfoil Dossier, and is a must-read for anybody who is a fan of beautiful writing or creepy stories. (SK)
THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY
A coming-of-age novel that follows Belly, a teenage girl who returns to the same beach house that she has visited every summer with her family and close friends. This summer feels different though — she's growing up, seeing not only herself but others in a new light, and just beginning to understand love, friendship, and the complexities of change. Set within a dreamy beach setting and heartfelt moments, the story captures the bittersweet nature of growing up and discovering who you are. (KAYA STONE, Spokane Public Library clerical assistant)
JUST FOR THE SUMMER
A sweet and funny contemporary romance that kicks off when Justin and Emma meet on Reddit — of all places — bonding over a bizarre pattern in their dating lives. Every time they date someone, that person ends up finding "the one" immediately after breaking up with them. So, they jokingly agree to date each other JUST for the summer, thinking maybe they can break the curse. As they spend more time together, what was supposed to be a no-strings-attached summer starts to feel a lot more real. The book mixes humor, heart and depth with just the right amount of emotional healing and summer vibes. It's perfect if you like a romance that's both swoony and meaningful. (KS)
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB
This is the first in this cozy mystery series by British humorist Richard Osman. We follow the self-proclaimed Thursday Murder Club, a group of cold-case enthusiasts living in a pastoral retirement community, whose lives are made quite complicated when a real murder lands in their laps. Funny, captivating and often more touching than it has any right to be. It's being turned into a TV show in August, so read it now to be all caught up! (MORGAN LYNCH, owner of Jupiter's Eye Book Cafe)
TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA
This is a deadly and beautiful story about a once-quiet girl from a sheltered life who finds her strength and power in this "high seas" adventure full of pirates, romance and talking familiars. Each sea is made up of spores with different properties: Deadly vines erupt from one, and sharp, dangerous crystals emerge from another. Sanderson does an incredible job building this unique fantasy world. A perfect read for someone looking to fill their mind with adventure and imagination this summer. (MAKENNA HAEDER, Jupiter's Eye bookseller)
DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL
This book has everything! Adventure. Magical gear. Ridiculous monsters. But most importantly, it has FMC (Feline Main Character) Princess Donut and her loyal manservant, Carl. This literary RPG is hilarious, engaging, and the first series in a long time that I can't wait to read in its entirety. (AUBREY HOUGER, Jupiter's Eye bookseller)
