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1. The Wife Between Us was great! Also, The Flight Attendant and The Couple Next Door.

2. Read the New Yorker article about AJ Finn, aka Dan Mallory.

   1. Yes! That article was stranger than fiction!

      1. YES – and I didn’t like the book to begin with (I thought that his characterizations were inconsistent and the writing was poor) but reading that article made me REALLY not like it! Fascinating reading.

   2. That article was fascinating and made me wish I hadn’t paid to read the book.

3. Love this post — and just added a few for my summer reading pile! My favorite this year was “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai.

   1. LOVED this book

   2. I just finished this last night and I can’t stop thinking about it! So beautiful and so sad. I cried telling my husband about it.

4. Love this list. Educated by Tara Westover was really good too!

5. I love a series I can sink my teeth into for several books in a row and have been working my way through Ellie Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series. She’s an archaeologist who assists in criminal investigations in and around her home in Norfolk, England. Smartly written, engaging characters and captivating story lines.

   1. Yes!!! Isn’t this series wonderful!!!

6. Absolutely anything by Elinor Lipman. My sister calls her style snappy. :)

7. Definitely need to add some of these to my library holds!

   Paige
   http://thehappyflammily.com

8. Also, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Oh my goodness, the best book I’ve ever read!

   1. Yes that was a good one, and soon to be a movie too!

9. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss is so good. Beautifully written, concise, suspenseful. Layer after layer of plot and meaning … really incredible! It’s literary but also completely suspenseful, gets into gender dynamics, history, all in like 100 pages. It should win all the awards.

   Have to say I hated Woman in the Window. It was a boring version of Sigourney Weaver’s 1995 movie Copycat. Like, legit – it fully copies Copycat with the agoraphobia, central character a female shrink hunted and watched in her own home. But Copycat was good, and Woman in the Window was … not. Ironic the movie is called “Copycat” given that this dude fully ripped it off!

10. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who also wrote 101 Dalmatians)

    For fun nonfiction, any of the books by Sloane Crosley (I Was Told There’d Be Cake), and both of Mindy Kaling’s books!

    1. I Capture the Castle is wonderful!

11. Molly’s Game. I saw the movie first and then read the book which never happens! But they were both excellent .

12. I enjoyed reading Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. And am now reading The Lilac Girls.

    1. The former one of my favorites of the last few years. Enjoyed Lilac Girls also and have the prequel on my list.

13. Daisy Jones and the Six was fantastic, The Seven and a half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was fascinating, and I also second the other recs for the Great Believers and Eleanor Oliphant.

14. “Elements of Family Style” franki

15. Where’d you go Bernadette! I read two days on vacation and was laughing out loud shocking my four year old!

16. Bad Blood by John Carryou!

17. Love these recommendations! I’m currently reading The Huntress by Kate Quinn (her follow-up novel after The Alice Network) some other recent good reads are The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean, Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, And then She was Gone by Lisa Jewell, The Other Woman by Sandie Jones. and Before We Were Yours by Lisa Winga.

18. YAAAAS on a movie for Woman in the Window!! When I first read it I thought I would LOVE to see it made into a movie. Can’t wait!!

    1. A Woman is No Man – very good! Nice to see some books here on my to read list!

19. I really disliked ‘Educated’. Just a litany of terrible abusive incidents because the family were true believers in a god who was in charge. Also, her story of how she became educated was not believable. Either she left out crucial facts or she lied.

    I highly recommend the novel, ‘There There’ by Tommy Orange.

    1. I loved Educated! Most “true believers” would not create for their family such extreme dysfunction. I’d imagine she had to edit down the book as I found her educational path a bit confusing but I still recommend it highly. I also loved HILLBILLY ELEGY.

20. A woman is No Man – really good! Nice to see so many books here on my to read list!

21. Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore, The Tatooist of Aushawitz, Middlesex, East of Eden, Fall of Giants, One Thousand White Women.

22. I just finished “My Sweet Life in Paris” by David Leibowitz…very enjoyable and light, especially if you’re spending some time in Paris. I’m currently reading and really enjoying Ruth Reichl’s new book “Save Me the Plums.” I loved her other books “Garlic and Sapphires” and “Tender at the Bone.” I’m also listening to Frances Mayes “Women in Sunlight” – the first couple chapters are kind of slow but I’m enjoying it as an audiobook.

    1. I just finished L’Appart, the sequel to the Sweet Life in Paris – also very good. Can’t wait to read Reichl’s new book!

23. Hillbilly Elegy. Interesting and relevant.

    1. I second that. After reading it, I do understand “poor America” much better.

24. Thank you for this Great List!!

    Topping my recommendation list:
    The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
    Swing Time by Zadie Smith
    Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
    Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (crazy!!)

    1. I second The Mars Room.

25. “The Cartel” by Dan Winslow – not a feel good book, but so interesting!
    ” The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie – very insightful.
    “The house on Prague Street” by Hanna Demetz – a haunting story of a girl’s survival
    “The good women of China” by Xinran – very captivating.
    “The Prince of Mist” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. – anything by Zafon (a Spanish writer from Barcelona) is good!
    “The Moment” by Douglas Kennedy – a tragic and twisted love story in cold war Berlin

26. Thank you for adding to my Book Wish List- and I love your refreshing honesty!
    One of my favorites, although not a new one, is Pictures of the Past by Deby Eisenberg.

27. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Soon to be released as a film . I am a believer in always reading the book first. That way someone else’s imagination doesn’t impose itself on your own.

28. I recommmend “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” and “The Gentleman From Moscow” and will definitely check out yours. Always need a good book on hand. I also highly recommend The Holy Bible.

29. I don’t very often read current books, but I recently read Educated and A Gentleman in Moscow. Loved them both but for very different reasons! I found Educated to be a compelling story and was motivated to read it by both my sister and an interview with the author that I heard on NPR. I recently heard there is going to be a movie made of A Gentleman in Moscow, so I wanted to read the book first….easy to understand its popularity!

30. Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is wonderful. If you like murder mysteries, Tana French’s Dublin murder squad novels are worth reading. Also, Stephen King’s The Mercedes Killer, its two sequels, & the more recent connected novel, The Outsider. Thanks, Erin, for this post—lots of titles for summer reading. (Along with your new book which I just ordered—can’t wait!!!)

    1. Life after life is one of my all time favorites! Along with The Goldfinch, A Little Life (it’s HEAVY but breathtaking) and East of Eden. I also just read Maid which was a great memoir that felt very of the moment in how it portrays the working poor, welfare, single motherhood, etc.

31. These are all great books! Excellent suggestions…

32. Hill Billy Elegy, Calypso by David Sideris, My Dear Hamilton, and about to start Varina- which our town chose to read as a community.

33. Thanks for the great post, I added some books to my summer reading list.
    Just finished City of Thieves by David Benioff- so well written, also loved Book Thief, Kite Runner, Wild, The Wangs vs The World (why is this not a movie yet?) & Boys on the Boat

34. Thank you EOS! Loved loved The Alice Network!

35. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Great story and a fascinating read to get the perspective of Korean immigrants in Japan.

36. Maid by Stephanie Land – an eye-opening memoir that’s also a good read. Also, for a great page turner, everything written by Paula Daly.

37. I loved most of the books on this list! Thanks for sharing!

    https://thegirlfromconnecticut.com

38. What a fun post! I just finished “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” and it was one of my favorite books ever. I could not put it down. I also loved “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett and “East of Eden” by Steinbeck. Those two were just beautifully written and fascinating stories.

39. Thank you! Great post! Love getting book recommendations!

40. The best fiction book I’ve read recently was The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I loved The Great Alone and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I also really enjoyed Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. In nonfiction, Educated A Memoir by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls are phenomenal.

41. Two all-time favorites, though not new Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (the book is so much deeper and richer than the movie). Pretty much any Phillipa Gregory book, because I’m obsessed with English history, especially The Kingmaker’s Daughter and The Wise Woman.

42. Daisy Jones and the Six…the audio version is outstanding!

43. The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar – there are two stories; one relatively current, the other in the 1100’s and they are woven together around the Mediterranean. This book is an exotic escape with strong female characters – my favorite book of 2018.

    I love every book written by Ann Patchett – she is a national treasure!

44. All time favorites: Ahab’s Wife, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Gentleman From Moscow, Elegance of the Hedgehog. Recently loved: Transcription (and everything else by Late Atkinson is brilliant), Forest Dark (amazing), Vanessa and her Sister, and the four Elena Ferrante gems (you can watch My Brilliant Friend, the first, on HBO). Love lists like this–thank you!!

45. Tiger Pelt by Annabelle Kim

46. White Fur (only half way through but such interesting writing – I’m so excited to get back to it every night)
    and thanks for this list and all the comments – def saving!