It’s summer! The season of beach reads, page-turning suspense, and cozy reading at the cabin. Whether you travel far or stick close to home, it’s the perfect time to kick back, relax, and get into a good book. And there are plenty of new releases to add to your TBR list! Here are some recent releases across varied genres that I am excited to dive into this summer. The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, Jesse Kirkwood (Translator) – Literary Fiction/Cozy Mystery What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by… The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal. One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware – Thriller A high-tension and ingenious thriller following five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them. Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t…

Memoir allows readers a glimpse into the lives of others, the struggles they’ve gone through, the lessons they’ve learned, showing the width and breadth of the human experience. And with the added visual element, graphic memoir brings another dimension to the story and pulls the reader into the setting without the need for prose description, visually transporting readers to lands and perspectives different from their own. The prose lays out the storyline, and the illustration provides the details, allowing for a different kind of comprehension. Memoir feels especially suited to the graphic novel format. These are the stories of real people unfolding before your eyes. The visuals help with understanding differences, but they can also make similarities more striking too. Maybe you’ll learn something new; maybe you’ll find a bit of yourself in the story. Each reading experience is important and powerful. No matter your age or experience, graphic memoirs are accessible and valuable for all. Interested in trying graphic memoir? Showcasing a variety of different art styles, here are some more recent releases I recommend. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful…

With a beautiful blend of art and prose, graphic novels are one of the most accessible mediums out there. Even if you’re not a huge reader, a graphic novel is easy to pick up and digest. More than just superhero comics and manga, graphic novels contain stories from many different genres—mystery/thriller, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, and so much more. While comics and graphic novels are certainly not a new thing, their popularity continues to rise, and many best-selling books and shows now have graphic novel adaptations. Did you know Game of Thrones has a graphic novel adaptation? Or Octavia Butler’s Kindred? My favorite subgenre, though, is graphic memoir. These are real people telling their stories through the medium of comics. The visuals add another layer to the story, bringing more atmosphere and emotion to the work and giving the reader a more vivid picture of events on the page. Graphic memoirs allow readers to visually understand the author’s perspective and picture what life is like for someone else in a deeper way, transporting readers to situations and places other than their own. This format also presents a unique opportunity to make memoirs accessible and appealing to younger readers. In fact, there are many graphic memoirs marketed to both middle grade and young adult readers, introducing diverse perspectives and important issues to kids at a young age in a tangible and digestible way. No matter your age or experience, graphic memoirs are accessible and valuable for all. They are a testament to how…