As the 2023-24 Season comes to a close, and as we ready THE LIST for the 2024-25 Season, please enjoy these Summer Reading recommendations!

No doubt you met the slave Jim when you read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Now meet him again in this retelling–we bet you won’t recognize him! James by Percival Everett (always a Literary Masters favorite) adheres closely to the original yet is something new and remarkable. Upending and subverting notions of race, gender, authorship, and language, this rollicking tale will grip you from the first page!

An entertaining family saga that paints a vivid portrait of post-crash Ireland. The novel is at turns funny and then heartbreaking in its examination of how loved ones damage and rescue one another during turbulent times. Our bet is you’ll be staying up late to finish the book, and you’ll miss these characters when you’ve turned the final page.

This debut novel examines loss, martyrdom, and addiction in the context of a young Iranian-American orphan. As a baby, Cyrus Shams loses his mother to the real-life downing of Iran Air flight 665 by the U.S. Navy; while Cyrus is in college his father dies. Searching for meaning – even potentially through a meaningful death – he stumbles upon a secret that may change his entire outlook. With surprising humor and glorious writing, the book ultimately is uplifting and hopeful.

Award-winning Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair recounts her turbulent childhood in a Rastafarian household dominated by her charismatic, unpredictable and, at times, violent father. The island paradise of her youth becomes more confining as her father’s dissatisfaction and frustration grows, leading her to start writing as an escape, eventually resulting in both Safiya and her mother seeking refuge in the United States.

Class, corruption, politics, and power collide in this action-packed novel that takes place in modern-day India, revolving around the Wadia family empire. Seen from shifting perspectives, moving forward and back in time, the reader is challenged to determine who are the villains and can there be any heroes?

Growing up knowing she was different, the author tried to figure out why she made people uncomfortable, why she wasn’t feeling what others were, and why she felt compelled to break rules – and occasionally laws – in order not to blow up. By college, she knows she is an actual sociopath, but she also knows she’s not a monster. Her memoir tells the story of figuring out how to build a full life with real relationships for herself while helping all of us see the millions of other sociopaths in the US differently. Audio book highly recommended!

Central character Nayan has lost his family to a terrible accident years before the novel opens. While he has closed himself off from love, he has built a community through his labor union where he is campaigning for a leadership role. By reconnecting with a woman who left town years earlier, he sets off a series of events that leaves readers questioning the role of social media, identity politics, and secrets in building and maintaining community. An engaging read from a two-time Booker Prize nominee.

Some of the issues that were front and center in this 2023-24 season’s final title, The House of Doors, again take center stage in this family saga also set in Malaya a few years later. A woman who has entered an affair out of boredom, frustration, and feelings of powerlessness after years under colonial rule, has to face the consequences of her actions as they threaten to destroy her entire family.

Pulitzer Prize finalist and East Bay native Tommy Orange follows up his debut novel, a Literary Masters favorite: There, There. The story covers the history of that debut’s characters’ ancestors, initially focusing on Star, one of the few survivors of the real-life Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. By filling in what happened before and after the events of There, There, Orange illuminates the reality of generational trauma and the search for belonging shared by so many Native Americans.

While relating the history of apartheid and the Mandelas’ roles in its eventual downfall, Steinberg takes readers inside the surprising reality of their relationship and marriage which at turns was romantic, deceitful, highly secretive, and always supremely political. The two almost never lived together but their joint impact upon South Africa changed history. It’s a fresh and fascinating take on history you may not be familiar with.

A house set in the woods of New England. Spanning centuries, it gives shelter to myriad individuals and their hopes, dreams, and desires. A mashup of genres, this unique novel will seduce you with its language and prompt deep thoughts and questions on nature, time, love, and more.

Winner of the 2023 Booker Prize, this book will knock your socks off! Set in some-time-in-the future Ireland, a civil war is brewing as tyrannical forces have taken over the government. But it’s all been very drip-drip slow changes, so Eilish Stack, mother of four, doesn’t know whether she’s overreacting in her fears; hence, she doesn’t know when to act. Is it possible to read a book while covering your eyes? This one is a gripper!

Another Literary Masters favorite, Alice McDermott never lets us down! Her latest gem takes place in Vietnam in 1963 from a unique voice: two American women who are there to support their husbands’ important careers. As the women get involved with the local community, they begin to see their roles as much more. Good intentions? Bad intentions? You decide who is need of absolution!

Here we have three loosely connected stories, each centering on an inhabitant from a different floor of a Tel Aviv apartment building: first floor Arnon, Hani–one floor up, and Devora on the top floor. As their stories unwind, you’ll be riveted by their psychological depth. Israeli author Eshkol Nevo’s novel will make you want to lay down on the nearest couch and analyze these characters!

This one will grab you by your heart and not let go. A story of three generations of women: grandmother Ruth, her drug-addicted daughter Eleanor, and Eleanor’s young daughter Lily. Can Ruth save Eleanor or Lily? Can Eleanor save herself or Lily? Can Lily save anyone? Have your tissues ready while you devour this stellar novel! You will love it and you won’t want to miss it!

This very clever and entertaining novel covers some familiar ground–wannabe literary success Jacob Finch Bonners cannot conjure a second novel worth publishing. Until…he hears about the death of his former student Evan Parker…the same Evan Parker who had revealed “the plot” of a work-in-progress to Jacob Finch Bonners all those years ago…Think you can guess the rest? Think again–you need to read this one!