August is a month of adventure, sunshine, and soaking up the last vestiges of summer. It’s also a month for reading! While you’re relaxing at the cabin, soaking up sun on the beach, or chilling at home in your favorite chair, consider picking up these newer fiction titles that I’m excited to dive into. Wolvers by Taylor Brown — Literary Thriller Richly detailed, character-driven, and lyrical, this is a book I am excited to read not only because of the myriad themes it touches on, but also because the author uniquely includes the she-wolf’s perspective in the story. Told from four perspectives, award-winning author Taylor Brown presents a suspenseful, thrillingly-written tale of pursuit, survival, and redemption set at the burning edge of today’s American Southwest, where once-extinct wolves have returned, the land is tinder-dry and fragile, and desperate men seek to reclaim what they believe is theirs to rule. Broke, dispossessed, and angry at the government after losing his family’s New Mexico ranch, Trace Temple is looking for revenge. He’s living out of his truck when a shadowy militia movement hires him to take down the legendary she-wolf of the Dark Canyon pack, One-Eleven. But One-Eleven is no ordinary wolf. Cunning, fiercely protective of her young, and seasoned in the ways of men, she leads her pack deep into the forbidding desert peaks and canyons, always one step ahead of pursuit. After a harrowing brush with death in the backcountry, Trace has a change of heart—only to be replaced by…

There is something special about summer, especially in Wisconsin where warm weather happens for only a few treasured months of the year. And while reading is a favorite pastime all year round, summer has always felt like prime time for reading. So in the tradition of creating summer bucket lists, here are a few book-centered ideas add to your list. Take yourself on a book date. Visit your favorite local indie bookstore or library and pick up a new book that catches your eye. Then settle in with your new read on a chair at the beach, or on a blanket at a park, or in a cozy corner of a local coffee shop. This is a fun way to work on your TBR while also going on an outing to places you might not normally visit. Join your library’s summer reading program. Summer reading programs aren’t just for kids! Many libraries have programs for adults to join too (Brown County Library and the Appleton Public Library both do!). If you’re going to be reading all summer anyway, you might as well earn prizes while doing it. Read something new. Try reading something from a genre or an author that is new to you, or try reading an audiobook if you normally read print books. You might just discover a new favorite! Attend an event at your local indie bookstore. From author talks to book clubs to pop-up bookfairs, indie bookstores have a variety of events to suit every kind…

Judith Rossner’s 70s novel, August, is about a psychoanalyst and the young adult client she sees during the month when all therapists take vacation. Someone needs to write the novel about an agent and the young adult novelist who pitches in August and hears crickets. Is everyone on vacation in August? Yup. August is about beach books and cabin reads. Swinging in a hammock with a great novel or lounging by the pool reading new nonfiction, reading al fresco is a summer pleasure. Enjoy. So what’s on my summer reading list? Fiction Trust Exercise by Susan Choi The Evening Hero by Marie Myung-Ok Lee Perish by LaToya Watkins Nonfiction Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys by Erin Kimmerle How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo Memoir Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness by Baynard Woods The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama Happy Go Lucky by David Sedaris If you’re getting ready to seek an agent or publisher, you have even more reason to relax with a good book. Like therapists, agents and acquisition editors are often on a summer hiatus the next four to six weeks. It’s the off-season for new book deals. Sit back and enjoy this month to read. It’s an especially good time to read your comps. What are your comps? Your market competition, the books your readers are buying right now, your comparables. How…