August is reading month and if you’re looking for something to take to the beach or enjoy at the cabin, consider these current titles the team at Swenson Book Development LLC is reading now. Samantha Kolb: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas     Alanna Rieser: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut God Bless You Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut ISIS: A History by Fawaz Gerges Jenna Goodman: The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone Second Life: A Novel by S J Watson     Sharon Yntema: Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor How to Make White People Laugh by Negin Farsad Lab Girl by Hope Jahren How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander   Susan Tripp: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro Esther the Wonder Pig by Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter and Caprice Crane   Jill Swenson: LaRose by Louise Erdrich The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure Tribe by Sebastian Junger     …  

August is a reading month. Summer reading is for everyone, though it’s essential for developmental editors, agents, and acquisition editors. Some take their books to the beach. Editors to the porch. I have a handful of new client projects to read this month. So what am I reading? Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir, Little, Brown & Company, 2017. Having read his poetry, essays, and novels, I’m eager to read Alexie’s memoir. At Untitled Town Literary Festival this past April, I heard Sherman Alexie read an excerpt from this tribute to his mother. Recently Alexie pulled back from his book tour schedule to deal with his grief. If you haven’t read his Facebook post explaining why, you can read more here. Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do, Abrams, 2017. I have a weakness for graphic memoirs and this one is an incredible work of art. The story of a family’s immigration during the Vietnam War. Global warming. Automation/AI. Eating disorders. Business Strategy. Rock & Roll history. I’m reading about a lot of interesting topics these days. And I confess to reading the Washington Post and New York Times religiously. What have I read that I recommend for your August reading pleasure?  Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give, Balzer & Bray, 2017. Not since Jessamyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones have I read such a compelling account of the real world through the eyes of a black teen-age girl protagonist. Starr Carter attends a suburban…

The last week of the year is a book orgy for me. No distractions. No interruptions. It is the time of year when I can indulge in reading works I have set aside because I know I am going to enjoy them. Some of these might have ended on my list to wrap up for 2015 if I hadn’t set them aside for my end-of-year reading marathon. In short, I may have saved the best for last. Here’s what on my TBR stack for my holiday reading. For the love of books! (1) Amy Stewart, Girl Waits with Gun (September 1, 2015, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Synopsis: Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family—and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared. Stewart’s previous books, Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist, made me a fan of her nonfiction science writing. This is her first work of fiction. She and her husband live in Eureka, California,…