Often, the best books are not the ones that scream loudly from the most prominent bookstore displays. Instead, they are the ones that friends hand you with urgency, maybe when you're over for dinner or meeting for a drink. "You have to read this," they say. "But please give it back."
With that in mind -- and vacations, the beach and this long holiday weekend still in front of us -- I asked people who work around words for a living to give us three great reads for the summer. There are classics, newcomers, short stories, true stories and epic novels. And to keep you cool, there's a story about a failed Arctic expedition.
Just please give them back.
Kevin Watson, publisher at Press 53, a Winston-Salem-based publishing house.
□ The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter.
Watson's 13-year-old son will be reading this novel this summer, but his father said it's a good story for anyone in middle school or beyond. The book isn't without controversy -- Carter originally published his book in 1976 as a memoir. It's the story of an orphan who is raised by his Cherokee grandparents during Prohibition in a remote mountain community. "An emotional, touching story," Watson said. "Lots of laughs. Just a fantastic read."
□ Welding with Children: Stories by Tim Gautreaux.
Gautreaux has a knack for creating Southern characters who are funny yet multidimensional, not caricatures, Watson said.
The title story in this short-story collection is about a working-class Cajun grandfather whose four unmarried daughters dump their kids on him to "baby sit."
□ The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk by Jennifer Niven.
The true story of explorers who head to the Arctic and then get abandoned by the ship captain and head scientist. "It's...like you're there every step of the way," Watson said. "It's a perfect summer read, because you're going to freeze your rear end off reading it."
Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin, Forsyth County Library Director.
□ The Known World by Edward P. Jones.
This 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner revolves around a black slave owner in the antebellum South. "It has issues (about) human ownership and the power we have over each other, religion and morality. On vacation, I just think it's something that you can get a hold of...and it will take at least a week or two to read it," Sprinkle-Hamlin said.
□ Moments of Grace: Meeting the Challenge to Change by Patrice Gaines.
The only things we can count on are death and taxes, so the expression goes. It probably should include change. Written by a Washington Post reporter who battled heroin use and abusive relationships, this self-help book is about her recipe for meeting and making change. "We all have changes in our lives, and some of us know how to deal with it and some of us don't," Sprinkle-Hamlin said.
□ Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama.
Obama's first book (published in 1995 before the beginning of his political career) is his memoir of being a black man raised by a white mother and grandparents, and a visit to his relatives in Kenya.
John McNally, a professor of English at Wake Forest University and the author of the novels
The Book of Ralph and America's Report Card.
□ Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris.
In 1967, the five movies nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards represented America at a crossroads -- and on a cultural cusp. They changed mainstream filmmaking, McNally said. This book takes you into the making of The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde and the other nominees.
□ Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.
This 1961 novel is McNally's favorite. It's the story of a young Connecticut couple with two children. They seem to be happy on the surface, but they feel unfilled in their 1950s world of cocktails and housewives. Then they move to France. And it doesn't get better. McNally calls it The Great Gatsby and Madame Bovary set in suburbia."
□ Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis.
McNally describes this novel as a "satire of cults in America. For me, Charles Portis is the funniest writer around." Portis has been compared to Kurt Vonnegut, but McNally thinks of him as a modern Mark Twain.
Amy Knox Brown, a professor of English at Salem College and the author of a book of short stories,
Three Versions of the Truth.
□ The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubois.
Dubois wrote this novel after learning that the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in 2001 had spent the days before 9/11 in Florida living the high life. The book shifts point of view: from a stripper in a local club to a down-on-his-luck local to one of the terrorists. This "is just so risky, and I was astonished by that," Brown said. "People who take that hard point of view, I have a lot of admiration for that. It's an absolute page-turner."
□ Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History by Ted Sorensen.
Sorensen was President John F. Kennedy's speechwriter, and this is his autobiography. Brown liked this book because Sorensen is from Nebraska, like her. "He really made an effort to do good in the world. He's still out, he's still campaigning for candidates he thinks can make a difference in this country."
□ A Lost Lady by Willa Cather.
Cather is known for her elegant, spare novels about the American frontier. A Lost Lady was published in 1923. It's set in Nebraska and is the story of Mrs. Forrester, the envied young wife of a prominent citizen. "Her writing is just so clear and beautiful," Brown said.
Stuart Egan, an English teacher at West Forsyth High School.
□ Then We Came to the End by Joshua Farris.
Farris' novel explores the world of a Chicago ad agency after the dot-com bubble burst. It is faced with layoffs and a dwindling number of employees. "It's witty. It's a good first novel. It's fast-paced," Egan said. "It's also about the interesting dynamics that are together when people are in the workplace."
□ The Gathering by Anne Enright.
Egan admires the writing behind this novel about an Irish family of 12 who come together for the wake of one of their brothers. The brother committed suicide, and the story is told from his closet sibling, one of his sisters.
□ Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson.
Tyson was a 10 year-old in Oxford, N.C. when a black boy was murdered by a hot-tempered businessman. Tyson balances journalistic objectivity with his emotional connections (his father was an anti-segregationist minister) as he tells this story, Egan said. This book is among the choices for AP Language and Composition students (Egan's charges) at West Forsyth. "I haven't read a nonfiction book that's been quite that powerful in a long time," he said.
Ginger Hendricks, the director of Salem College's Center for Women Writers.
□ A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.
Incoming freshmen this year at Salem are required to read Hosseini's novel about the relationship of two women in troubled Afghanistan, but it's a book that Hendricks would suggest to anyone. "It has mystery, it has love, it has cultural understanding, it has this history of Afghanistan. And I just like the end. It offered hope while it was still grounded in reality."
□ Queen of the Oil Club: The Intrepid Wanda Jablonski and the Power of Information by Anna Rubino.
Written by a Winston-Salem writer, Oil Club is the story of a gutsy female reporter who cast light on the backroom dealings of Western oil executives during the 1950s to the 1980s. Hendricks likes books about strong female role models for her students. She also calls it a "timely book with gas and oil and all of these issues on our nation's mind. It's heavy at times, but she tells it as a biography that has a really quick, page-turning story."
□ The Light in the Piazza by Elizabeth Spencer.
This 1960 novella is about a young, mildly mentally retarded American woman who falls in love while she and her mother are on vacation in Europe. It doesn't hurt that it's set against the backdrop of Bella Italia. "It makes me want to travel," Hendricks said.
■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.
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