Summer Reading Joy!

Year of Yes:
How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person
by Shonda Rhimes

With three hit shows on television and three children at home, the ubertalented Shonda Rhimes had lots of good reasons to say no when an unexpected invitation arrived. Hollywood party? No. Speaking engagement? No. Media appearances? No. And there was the side benefit of saying no for an introvert like Shonda: nothing new to fear.

Then Shonda's sister laid down a challenge: Just for one year, try to say yes to the unexpected invitations that come your way. Shonda reluctantly agreed - and the result was nothing short of transformative. In Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes chronicles the powerful impact saying yes had on every aspect of her life - and how we can all change our lives with one little word. Yes.

Rock Me on the Water:
1974, The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics
by Ronald Brownstein

Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year.

Start Without Me (I'll Be There in a Minute)
by Gary Janetti

In Start Without Me, Gary returns with his acid tongue firmly in cheek to the moments and times that defined him. He takes us by the hand as we follow him through the summers he spends in his twenties, pursuing both the perfect tan and the perfect man to no avail and much regret. At his Catholic high school, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a nun who shares Gary's love of soap operas, which becomes a salvation to them both. And don't get him started on how a bad hotel room can ruin even the best vacation. This laugh-out-loud collection of true-life stories from the man “behind his generation’s greatest comedy” (The New York Times) is for anyone who has felt the joy in holding a decade-long grudge.

The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Smoketown:
The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance
by Mark Whitaker

Smoketown is a “rewarding trip to a forgotten special place and time” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. “Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other Black Renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it.

The Woman in the Moonlight: A Novel
by Patricia Morrisroe

When Beethoven discovers the truth, he sets his emotions to music, composing a mournful opus that will become the Moonlight Sonata. The haunting refrain will follow Julie for the rest of her life. The Woman in the Moonlight is an exhilarating ode to eternal passion. An epic tale of love, loss, rivalry, and political intrigue. A stirring portrait of a titan who wrestled with the gods and a woman who defied convention to inspire him.

The Happiness Project
Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
by Gretchen Rubin

Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
by Holly Jackson

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell: A Novel
by Robert Dugoni

Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called “Devil Boy” or Sam “Hell” by his classmates; “God’s will” is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother’s devout faith, his father’s practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends.

The Power of Regret:
How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward
by Daniel H. Pink

Drawing on research in social psychology, neuroscience, and biology, Pink debunks the myth of the “no regrets” philosophy of life. And using the largest sampling of American attitudes about regret ever conducted as well as his own World Regret Survey—which has collected regrets from more than 15,000 people in 105 countries—he lays out the four core regrets that each of us has. These deep regrets offer compelling insights into how we live and how we can find a better path forward.

The Light Between Oceans: A Novel
by M.L. Stedman

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

The Doctor Is In:
Dr. Ruth on Love, Life, and Joie de Vivre
by Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer and Pierre A. Lehu

Everyone knows Dr. Ruth as the most famous and trusted sex therapist, but few people know she narrowly escaped death from the Holocaust, was raised in an orphanage in Switzerland, or that she was a sniper during Israel's War of Independence. After years spent as a student in Paris, Dr. Ruth came to America dreaming of a new life though never expecting the dramatic turns that would take place. And at the age of eighty-seven, she is as spirited as ever. Through intimate and funny stories, Dr. Ruth sheds light on how she's learned to live a life filled with joie de vivre. And she shows readers how they too can learn.