Oooh, such a good thread, Alicat!
Diana, it looks like you and I are on the same page(?) when it comes to our summer reading. I've just started River of Stars and have Life After Life on the top of my TBR pile next to my bed. Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite "fun read" authors and I fell in love with Kate Atkinson when my sister handed me Case Histories last summer; she reminds me of an early Margaret Atwood books with her witty observations on human behavior.
Other summer reads that I'd recommend are
The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman: a modern Jane Austen-ish author who is funny and insightful at the same time. A book that I'd recommend to anyone who enjoyed Beautiful Ruins.
http://www.amazon.com/Inn-at-L.....7&sr=
Enemy Women and The Color of Lightning--both by Paulette Jiles--a first-rate storyteller who reminds me of a female Cormac McCarthy. Maybe someone Liz might want to check out?
http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Wo.....38;qid=137
http://www.amazon.com/The-Colo.....TF8&q
And, Inge, if you like books about books, have you read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller? I was hooked after reading this passage in a review:
http://www.amazon.com/Winters-.....r_1_6?s=bo
In a shop window you have promptly identified the cover with the title you were looking for. Following this visual trail, you have force your way through the shop past the thick barricade of Books You Haven't Read, which were frowning at you from the tables and shelves, trying to cow you. But you know you must never allow yourself to be awed, that among them extend for acres and acres the Books You Needn't Read, The Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written. And thus you pass the outer girdle of ramparts, but then you are attacked by the infantry of the Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered. With a rapid maneuver you bypass them and move into the phalanxes of Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, The Books Too Expensive Now And You'll Wait Till They're Remaindered, the Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback, Books You Can borrow From Somebody, Books That Everybody's Read So It's As If You Had read Them, Too.
If you can't escape to someplace exotic, I'd also recommend the mysteries written by Donna Leon (Venice) and Barbara Nadel (Turkey). Both authors write stories that are great airplane reads--you won't even notice the turbulence and you'll be longing to get on another plane to fly to those locations.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb.....nna+leon+b
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb.....arbara+nad
And finally, two great non-fiction reads are Factory Girls by Lesley T. Chang which documents the everyday lives of young female factory workers in China and Edmund De Waal's The Hare With Amber Eyes which is a combination memoir and detective story of his family's collection of tiny Japanese carvings that survived the Second World War set in Paris and Vienna.
http://www.amazon.com/Factory-.....8&
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hare.....im_sbs_b_1
I'm checking back on this thread to keep building my list for this summer!
