Miriam Tuliao

12Aug08

The dog days of summer invite lazy afternoons relaxing with a great book at the beach or on the deck. In my position as the assistant director of Central Collection Development for the New York Public Library, I’m lucky to get an early introduction to noteworthy new books. Here are my picks for five summer reads you surely won’t want to miss:

Intrigue and suspense start early in Jennifer McMahon’s Island of Lost Girls (Harper Paperbooks; April 2008). The novel’s opening scene finds Rhonda Farr filling up her car at a gas station and witnessing a six-year-old girl being abducted by a stranger wearing a rabbit costume.

Gil Adamson’s The Outlander (Ecco; April 2008), set in 1903, is a startlingly lyrical debut novel about a 19-year-old widow’s desperate odyssey. After murdering her husband, Mary Boulton scrambles across Canadian foothills while her two vengeful brother-in-laws are in hot pursuit.

Victoria Lustbader examines the complexities of love and loss in her latest novel, Stone Creek (Harper Paperbacks; May 2008). She tells the affecting story of a lonely wife who finds solace in the company of a young widower and his five-year-old son.

In Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone (William Morrow; January 2008), Beth Lisick commits to a year of self-improvement. The California-based writer provides droll, enlightening chronicles of her journey, which include attendance at an Orman-led financial seminar and a “Cruise to Lose” with Richard Simmons.

In Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil (Random House Trade Paperbacks; December 2007), Deborah Rodriguez offers a captivating and colorful account of developing a cosmetology training program in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.

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