More Summer Reading, 2014

Parade's Picks

After the shock of discovering that People magazine is cutting back its book review coverage, it may be some comfort that Parade has not abandoned its annual picks of the best books of the summer (well, actually, the selections were made by Amazon’s editors. Interestingly, in spite of the Amazon’s fight with Hachette, the list includes some Hachette titles).

The 20 selections range from the expected (Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes; J.K. Rowling’s The Silkworm, a Hachette title) to heavily promoted debuts (I Am Pilgrim, by screenwriter Terry Hayes; the international bestseller, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, by Swiss writer Joel Dicker and the beginning of a new fantasy series, The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen) to the book that has been dubbed The Smart Beach Read of Summer 2014, complete with a jacket blurb from the author of 2012’s smart beach read, Maria Semple, (The Vacationers by Emma Straub).

The New York Times Book Review has also released its annual Summer Reading Issue, an odd assortment of categories, just three of them fiction (science fiction, thrillers and horror; the humor roundup, for some reason, focuses on nonfiction), while its West Coast rival, The L.A. Times selects many more titles in a broader range of categories, including audio, sports, Y.A. and children’s books.

Links to the summer reading lists are at right, under “Season Previews.”

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