Why is summer so popular for reading? Maybe it’s the lure of a written-word vacation; maybe it’s the idea of stretching out in the sand near the Teacups at Mill Creek with a book in one hand and lemonade in the other. In any case, we love reading at the Moab Sun News, and this summer, we’re chatting with local book experts about how to read more, and what to read, while the weather is warm.
Last week, we chatted with the Grand County Public Library about its summer reading programs and events. This week, we caught up with staff at Back of Beyond Books, a local bookstore, to gather reading recommendations.
Shari Zollinger, who manages events and community outreach at Back of Beyond, said summer often feels like a pause button: a reset after school ends and vacations are planned.
The bookstore sees patrons from all over the world, Zollinger said, meaning its bestseller lists often reflect a number of different reading styles. But overall, readers this summer are gravitating to fiction.
“Often when people go on vacation, they’re not looking for a lot of heavy nonfiction—they’re looking for this handful of, whether it be a psychological thriller, a romance, or a literary read, they’re looking for fun reads—something that’s smart and sexy,” Zollinger said.
Romance books are trending, reflecting a worldwide resurgence in the genre. Romance books have typically been considered cheap paperbacks; A stereotypical cover features a shiny and muscled man on the front, embracing a damsel. But romance books today are more diverse and queer.
“We’ve pushed through all those boundaries,” Zollinger said. “It’s not just a heteronormative story anymore: it’s a very diverse story. We’ve never even had a romance section until the last few months, and now we have a few shelves dedicated to romance. And it’s just flying off the shelves.”
Fantasy books like “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros are trending too, Zollinger said. And a few of the most popular nonfiction books, such as “The Body Keeps the Score,” by Bessel van Der Kolk, “All About Love” by bell hooks, and “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer have remained popular through the summer, she said.
Recommendations
Zollinger recommends the nonfiction essay-turned-book “Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma” by Claire Dederer, a book that explores how fans react when the person they love does things they don’t like: how does cancel culture overlap with fan culture? And when is it right to cancel a book or piece of media?
She also recommends “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver, a book that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, about the 80s and 90s opioid epidemic in Appalachia, told with the voice of a young boy.
“You either love it or you hate it … this book is really long and thick, so you can sit and get lost in it,” Zollinger said.
Other Back of Beyond staff gave teasers for some of their favorite reads:
Recommendations
Zollinger recommends the nonfiction essay-turned-book “Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma” by Claire Dederer, a book that explores how fans react when the person they love does things they don’t like: how does cancel culture overlap with fan culture? And when is it right to cancel a book or piece of media?
She also recommends “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver, a book that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, about the 80s and 90s opioid epidemic in Appalachia, told with the voice of a young boy.
“You either love it or you hate it … this book is really long and thick, so you can sit and get lost in it,” Zollinger said.
Other Back of Beyond staff gave teasers for some of their favorite reads:
1. Bread and Circus
Staff member Megan recommends “Bread and Circus,” by Airea D. Matthew.
“In her poetry collection “Bread and Circus” Airea D. Matthew powerfully couples her background in economic study with intimate auto-biography to directly counter the theories put forth in classical economic and political thought. Pushing boundaries of poetic form, Matthews’s work poses a challenge to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” proposing the failure of self-interest in reaching an economically optimized society when that society’s people themselves are commodified. Deeply personal poems and prose are offered alongside redacted excerpts from both Smith and French Marxist Guy Debord, leaving the reader with both greater wisdom of the truths of modern society and a deep connection to the author’s own story. Bread and Circus is creative, moving, and massively relevant—highly recommended!”
2. Birman Wood
Staff member Nat recommends “Birman Wood,” by Eleanor Catton.
“This new eco-thriller from Eleanor Catton begins when a landslide blocks off a pass on New Zealand’s South Island, leaving a small town and a large farm mostly abandoned. The guerrilla gardening group known as Birnam Wood quickly seizes the opportunity for some semi-criminal crop planting. By the time the collective encounters an enigmatic American billionaire who claims to have purchased the farm to build his doomsday bunker, I was totally entangled in the plot’s intrigue. Catton completes an impressive balancing act over the course of the book, delving into rich thematic territory while also fleshing out a memorable cast of characters and steadily ramping up an engrossing mystery. The ideological extremes of anarchic environmentalism and techno-capitalism meet in a delicious muddle while the shadow of climate apocalypse looms over the proceedings. “Birnam Wood” was a novel that I could not put down and one I will not forget anytime soon.”
3. Jazz
Staff member Matthew recommends “Jazz” by Toni Morrison, saying, “if the first page doesn’t seize you, there’s no better pitch for the novel.”
“Like many great stories, you’re told everything at the start. Who, how, where, why, when, all on that first page. Then, the novel will spend the majority of its remaining pages casting a spell so enchanting that you forget the inevitable, forget you already know how this all ends. Great storytellers like Toni Morrison know plot can all be spoiled before the curtain even goes up, because the magic is in the telling. And this is a telling with power to forever change the way you hear. Listen.”
4. Saving Time
Staff member Heidi recommends “Saving Time” by Jenny Odell, saying, “Saving Time is an ambitious, wide-reaching book that explores the relationship between time, money, and power.”
“Odell masterfully illustrates how the dominant view of time as linear and incremented is inextricable not only from capitalism but from a whole host of other systemic harms, including colonization, white supremacy, and climate change. It can often feel like we are marching toward an inevitable and apocalyptic future, the dreaded outcome predetermined. Odell doesn’t shy away from her own experience of this feeling but also pushes back against what she describes as “declinism,” a fatalistic and deterministic view of the future fueled by nostalgia for the past. She reminds the reader that the dominant narrative of climate change—and time itself—as a linear, set-in-stone progression of events is instead just one possibility among many. It is both a paradigm-shifting call to action and a healing balm in an age of climate unraveling and sociopolitical upheaval. It acknowledges the deep grief and exhaustion many of us feel, without wallowing in despair. Above all, it is a hope-filled dive into our experience of time, reminding us that the way things are is not the way they always were, nor what they always have to be.”
5. This reporter’s recommendation: Jurassic Park
I would be remiss not to put my favorite summer read in here too: I recommend “Jurassic Park” by Michael Crichton, a book I’ve been telling all my friends about for years. The book is a marvelous thriller and quick read; Crichton writes a recipe for creating dinosaurs that feels so real I’m surprised no one’s genuinely tried to follow his formula. This is a classic example of the book being much better than the movie and makes a lovely beach read.
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