Although Labor Day marks the last hurrah for white pants, barbeques and kids up late on a Sunday night, it is not the end of the season. Until the clock strikes midnight on Sept. 21, it's still summer—and that means there's just enough time to squeeze in another good book atop your favorite lounge chair.
Not sure what to read for your last hurrah of summer? Fear not, we've cobbled together some best-sellers from The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, along with a few staff favorites from summers past. All you need to make your experience complete is a nice cold glass of iced tea lemonade.
Fiction
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: A wife mysteriously disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary.
- Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters: A tangled love story spanning 50 years from Hollywood to the Italian coast.
- Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood: An IRS officer and an FBI agent fight corruption and a mutual attraction while investigating a Ponzi scheme.
- The Imperfectionist by Tom Rachman: A series of short stories with interconnected characters woven into the rise and fall of an English-language newspaper in Rome.
Nonfiction
- Wild by Cheryl Strayed: A woman's account of a life-changing 1,100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
- Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: The story of Torrance resident Louis Zamperini—a World War II bombardier, prisoner of war and Olympian.
- The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer: The author, the son of a single mom, recounts how the flawed men of a local bar became his fathers, teaching him about love, literature, baseball and the drinking life.
- Crazy For The Storm by Norman Ollestad: Alone in a blizzard at night, the author and sole survivor of a single-engine plane crash hit the side of a steep mountain. He tells how he, as an 11-year-old boy, made it down the mountain.
For more summer reading suggestions for kids and adults, check out our Summer Reading Guide.
