A Summer List of Summer Lists

Summer is the time when most of us get to take a holiday of sorts and read a little more than usual. To prepare us for that time everyone prepares a list to tell you what is new (or sometimes old) and worth reading. We've gathered a few of those lists and brought them to you.

Richard and Judy’s hot summer reads

Hit the Stack! Top 10 summer reads from MSNBC

Summer Reading WSJ.com

NPR came up with several lists: Summer Books 2008

Real Simple magazine had authors make some lists for them.

If you want to know what we're reading, visit our staff pick page.

Enjoy your summer and your reading.

Special Message from Christopher Paolini!

We have a special video message from Christopher Paolini, author of The Inheritance Trilogy, for all y'all loyal Laguna Beach Books customers, as well as sneak-peak info about the third book in the series, Brisingr, due out September 19th!

Vacation Here I Come!

After a lot of time thinking about what books to take on my upcoming trip I've finally decided what books are going into my suitcase.

There have been many revisions to my previous list of possibilities and almost none of the books I originally had my eye on made it.

I finally had to ask my friend, who is traveling with me, to help decide. We will be sharing books on the trip, that way I get to pack more, so I figured she could cast the final vote (like a superdelegate).

This is the "ballot" I gave Mimi with very poor spelling and not a lot of information other than,
"The last two will be the most fun, the others are kind of suspenseful but literary, so I don't know how you would like them. one almost won the pulitzer prize (the stories) the top and the last were national book award finalists." (I added the * to note the titles I was leaning towards).

Fieldwork* Berlinski, Mischa
Alias Grace? (margret atwood)
Shakespeare's Kitchen* (Lori Segal) stories
House at Midnight (galley)*

Mayor's Tongue* (nathaniel Rich)
spellman files (lisa lutz)
then we came to the end (josh ferris)

And this is what she decided:
Fieldwork* Mischa Berlinski this one also sounds interesting but I like all the other ones better.
Alias Grace? (margret atwood) - this might to be too cerebral for the trip, but i would be interested later
#4 Shakespeare's Kitchen* (Lori Segal) stories
#2 House at Midnight (galley)* - This one seems to have an uncomfortable love story... i like it

#3 Mayor's Tongue* (nathaniel Rich) - I like that it sounds like there will be great language like raw shark text.
spellman files (lisa lutz) - I'll read this one when I come home, you own it right?
#1 then we came to the end (josh ferris)- if the office was a book? how could I pass this up?

So my bags are packed and I'm ready to go! I'll let you know how the reading goes. Feel free to make bets on how many books I actually finish (I'm shooting for two).

What books do you take on vacation?! A plea for help.

I'm going on a trip in May. I think one of my favorite things to do when preparing for a trip is planning what books to take. The thing that is unique about this trip is that it is three weeks long. I'm stumped on what titles to take, and how many of those titles is an appropriate amount to travel with.

I have no way of knowing how much I will be reading, or what kind of book mood I will be in while I'm away. There are so many books that I want to read - I keep a very long list - it's hard to narrow down my reading potential to a few titles.

Here are the main contenders:



I've been meaning to read Then We Came to the End for quite awhile now. I've heard amazing things about it from coworkers and everyone else. I'm 90% sure that it will make it into my suitcase.

I just finished reading Mysteries of Pittsburgh my Michael Chabon, and I've decided it would be fun to read his books in order of publication date. Wonderboys is his second novel and sounds petty interesting.

I've read many of Margaret Atwood's books and I've never been disappointed. I'm tempted to throw Alias Grace in as a safety. If all else fails at least I have Margaret?

The Ruins of California. Laura read this novel awhile ago and convinced me to buy it, but I haven't been in the "right mood". For some reason I'm hesitant to pick it up. Fear of not liking it? If it's just me and the book on a plane wouldn't that force me to read it and undoubtedly like it as much as Laura did? I trust Laura's opinion. We're "kindred spirits" when it comes to books, she likes everything I've loved and vice-versa...

The Savage Detectives recently came into the store in paperback. It sounds phenomenal, but Patrick said it was a little strange. He wasn't saying that it was bad it is just off the beaten path. I secretly wondered if he thought it was too smart for me and hence wasn't recommending it strongly.

Fieldwork - a National Book Award finalist. That alone makes me want to read it... It's kind of a mystery, but literary...whatever that means.

I put Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on the list, and then I took it off because it is a hardcover. For some reason people don't like traveling with hardcovers, I guess it's because they are heavy and cumbersome, but Oscar Wao is pretty petite for a hardcover. I've heard increasingly good things about Oscar (and Junot Diaz). When it first came out it got a stellar review and we couldn't get any it back in the store. Since then it just keeps getting more popular. It was just given The Rooster via The Morning News Tournament of Books - brought to us by the fine people at Powell's Books.

Side note: The Tournament of Books has to be the most creative thing in the book world. It's like March Madness for books, it's over now, but you can still read the reviews of the 16 beloved books from 2007. This also made me want to read Remainder by Tom McCarthy.

If anyone has any input on these titles let me know!
I'll keep you updated on who makes it into the suitcase and who is left on my nightstand at home.

Goodbye, Mr. Pinsky...

In case you aren't one of the loyal and your internet trolling has gone a little stale, add to your favorites the Washington Post column Poet's Choice. Don't be intimidated -- it's a weekly article featuring selections of poems surrounded by careful and understandable explanations of them.

Up until March, the column had been written by Robert Pinsky, the former United States poet laureate, and he did a wonderful job. Written in a warm, unintimidating style, he could get anyone to fall in love with his selected poems and to understand why they were essential, what about them speaks our soul's deep little human corners. So hat's off to Mr. Pinsky! (And by the by, his new book of poetry, Gulf Music, is a prime example of the best of American poetry.)

To fill those big, wonderful shoes we have Kay Ryan, whose shoes are undoubtably smaller but possessing more elegance. And she lead's off with one helluva poem, written in the seventh century by a man who has been scorned by his friend:

Liar

Swept overboard, unconscious in the breakers,
strangled with seaweed, may you wake up in a gelid
surf, your teeth, already cracked into the shingle
now set rattling by the wind, while facedown,
helpless as a poison cur, on all fours, you puke
brine reeking of dead fish. May those you meet,
barbarians as ugly as their souls are hateful,
treat you to the moldy wooden bread of slaves.
And may you, with your split teeth sunk in that,
smile, then, the way you did when speaking as my friend.

That is painful! But it's the vitriol we love, the kind we feed off of in gossip magazines and lap up from political pundits. So maybe I should feel guilty for loving this poem so much, and though it may be trashy, it's in verse -- how bad can it be?

Keep an eye on the Poet's Choice column. You won't regret it.

-Patrick