Summer Books
(Click on any of the titles to learn more and purchase item)

Fiction and Mystery
The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian
This book about the end of the world by physician Chris Adrian is compelling storytelling and an intriguing modern morality tale.

Priest by Ken Bruen
I have fallen madly in love with Bruen’s series featuring erudite and self-destructive ex-guard Jack Taylor. As Priest opens, Taylor’s just been released from five months in the loony bin recovering from a tragedy (The Dramatist). He’s asked to investigate the beheading of a priest.

How to Marry a Ghost by Hope McIntyre
In this sequel to How to Seduce a Ghost, ghostwriter Lee Bartholomew travels to Long Island to attend her mother’s commitment ceremony and interview aging rocker Shotgun Marriott. Two murders interfere with her plans and push her to investigate.

Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson
Veronika, a young writer, rents a house in a small village in Sweden to finish her new novel and come to terms with a personal tragedy. Astrid is Veronika’s elderly, reclusive neighbor. The two strike up an unusual and healing friendship. This is a beautiful, poetic novel.

The Body in the Ivy: A Faith Fairchild Mystery
by Katherine Hall Page
In the 16th book of the series, caterer and minister’s wife Faith Fairchild travels to a New England Island to cook for a bestselling author and her former college classmates. The weekend quickly turns deadly, and Faith must find the identity of the killer before the killer eliminates Faith.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
The final installment in the Harry Potter series comes out July 21. I’ve got my book reserved and plan to spend the night at the bookstore with a gazillion kids dressed just like Harry and Hermione.

Snow Blind by P.J. Tracy
Minneapolis detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth try to solve the murders of two police officers, found inside snowmen at the annual snowman building contest. This is the fourth Monkeewrench thriller featuring these detectives and the Monkeewrench computer team.

Dry Ice by Stephen White
Boulder County psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory learns that Michael McClelland, the man who almost killed he and his wife Lauren, has escaped from the state mental institution and is planning to get even with Alan (Privileged Information). Alan must find McClelland before McClelland gets his revenge.

Memoir
The Scent of God by Beryl Singleton Bissel
When 18-year-old Bissel entered a cloistered order, she became anorectic and suffered other obsessive compulsions. While home to care for her ill father, she fell in love with a priest. This story of spiritual, emotional, and physical desire is rich and compelling.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
In this rich graphic memoir, Bechdel explores her childhood with a closeted gay father, who was both an English teacher and the town funeral director.

Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics
by Miriam Engelberg
The late Miriam Engelberg was the 43-year-old mother of a four-year-old son when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She turned to cartooning to make sense of her life with this illness. The book offers helpful information and insights as well as a humorous look at a very serious condition.

The Freedom Writers Diary by Freedom Writers
Students at Wilson High School in Long Beach California share the stories of their challenging lives and their work with first-year teacher Erin Gruwell. My Dream Keepers teen writing group loved this book—and it has sparked more reading. The girls just started The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata’s Diary, both introduced in The Freedom Writer’s Diary.

Still Life with Chickens : Starting Over in a House By the Sea
by Catherine Goldhammer
Goldhammer chronicles a year of transition that included getting a divorce, buying and renovating a new house, and raising both her daughter and six chickens.

A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind
This riveting story chronicles the life of Cedric Jennings, a bright and talented African American teenager struggling to succeed in a bad public high school in Washington, D.C. Journalist Ron Suskind won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for the stories that became this book.

Non-fiction Books to Inspire and Encourage
The Four Day Win: End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace by Martha Beck
This helpful book from life coach Martha Beck addresses the emotional issues behind eating. The book is packed with great tools and exercises to support you in finding out how to heal your life

You: On A Diet by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz
This is a great companion to Beck’s book. It’s packed full of eating and exercise tips to help you get rid of your omentum, the fatty layer of tissue located inside the belly and underneath the muscles.

Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron
This volume completes the trilogy that began with The Artist’s Way and Walking in This World. Finding Water tackles one of the most difficult challenges of the writing life: keeping at it.

Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems Roger Housden, editor
Housden collects poems to support the reader in finding inspiration for a joyful life. Read one a day and see if you feel happier!

Secrets of Six-Figure Women by Barbara Stanny
This extraordinary book teaches women to value themselves, their time, their earning power, and their work.

Touching the Holy: Ordinariness, Self-Esteem, and Friendship by Robert J. Wicks
Psychologist Robert Wicks offers solace to those who struggle with loving self and others. The book contains gentle teaching stories, skills for managing life, and helpful exercises.

Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart by John Welwood
Psychotherapist John Welwood believes that our difficulties in life come from a universal wounding around love. Welwood provides exercises that support readers in accessing feelings and healing old wounds, so that they can move forward and love well.

Summer Music

The All-American Rejects
CD: Move Along
Download: Move Along
A song about moving forward in the midst of challenge:
Speak to me when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along

Bright Eyes
CD: Cassadaga
Download: Soul Singer in a Session Band
Conner Oberst’s lyrics are clever, relevant, and sometimes funny. Here’s a sample:
Headlights or Taillights it's a flip of a coin
I have been coming and going since the day I was born
And I followed the breadcrumbs but I never got home
I grew old in an instant now I am all on my own

Carbon Leaf
CD: Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat
Download: Texas Stars
Courage for the discouraged and despairing:
Breathe in the night
Let it know just who you are
There's still a girl inside of you,
Connecting star to star
I'm glad to see you're taking flight
I'll spot the brightest one
So breathe, breathe, breathe in the night
Your journey's just begun

Mary Chapin Carpenter
CD: The Calling
Download: The Calling
A song about finding your true path in life:
Whatever the calling, the stumbling or falling
You follow it knowing
There's no other way, there's no other way

Dashboard Confessional
CD: A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar
Download: Am I Missing?
This song is pure angst, framing life’s deep questions:
(It's a long way) is there anything
(For an answer) worth looking for
(Is there any news) worth loving for
(Is there any word) worth lying for

Girlyman
CD: Joyful Sign
Download: Easy Pearls
Been dissed? Mad at yourself for settling? Challenge yourself with this song:
We dive for easy pearls and leave the rest forgotten
We leave the best of worlds at the bottom

Patty Griffin
CD: Children Running Through
Download: Getting Ready
This is a great break-up song—whether you’re leaving a job or a love.
Baby, baby, we got no traction
I'm just waiting and waiting for your reaction
So I try a new direction
I'm gonna give myself a resurrection
I'm getting ready, I'm getting ready, I'm getting ready to let you go

The Guggenheim Grotto
CD: Waltzing Alone
Download: Philosophia
Heady philosophy set to music. Makes you think!
But in time a thought comes tugging on the sleeve edge of our minds
Perhaps no perfect way exists at all, just many different kinds

Indigo Girls
CD: Despite Our Differences
Download: Pendulum Swinger
Can’t leave out my girls! This CD rocks. Listen to Lay My Head Down when you’re feeling world-weary. Tune into Rock and Roll Heaven’s Gate to rail at the music industry (Pink guests on that song). Pendulum Swinger is the Indigo Girls’ latest protest song:
I dream like a mad one
Brutal fantasies I catch as catch can
I'm a psychic and a laywoman
I see love and I like to make it happen

Martina McBride
CD: Waking Up Laughing
Download: Anyway
Need encouragement? Tune into this song:
You could chase a dream
That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

Jennifer O’Connor
CD: Over the Mountain, Across the Valley, and Back to the Sea
Download: B******t Maze
A song about trying to confront the truth in the midst of running on life’s treadmill:
Once in awhile I stop
in this b******t maze that I run
I look at my feet and then I look at the sun
I wonder to myself if I’m having any fun
And then I run
and start again.

Susan Werner
CD: The Gospel Truth
Download: (why is your) heaven so small
Werner takes on religion is this new CD of devotional and prophetic songs like this one:
but my friend, imagine this if you would
a love much mightier than us all
if god is great and god is good
why is your heaven so small?

Lucinda Williams
CD: West
Download: Are You Alright?
Listen to this song when you’re feeling lonely and forgotten. Williams will convince you that someone cares.
Are you all right?
Are you sleeping through the night?
Do you have someone to hold you tight?
Do you have someone to hang out with?
Do you have someone to hug & kiss you?
 

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