New York Times -- A List of Books for the Summer Reading Season

The New York Times provides a list of books published in May that will kick-off your summer reading season. They say "if May's books are any indication, the beaches of America will be dark and chilly this year."

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Stone's Fall by Ian Pears
The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith

What to Read This Summer -- from New York Magazine

New York Magazine gives us a reading list for this summer: "Could this be the summer we finally bury the notion that a beach read must be mindless to be fun?"

May books:
In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

How to Sell by Clancy Martin

The Food of a Younger Land edited by Mark Kurlansky

June books:
Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

Just Like Family by Tasha Blaine

Fordlandia by Greg Grandin

July books:
NYPD Confidential by Leonard Levitt

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott

August books:
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

The 13 Hottest Summer Reads

According to Sara Nelson of The Daily Beast website, the following are her picks for the summer's beach-reading musts. Nelson is a critic for The Daily Beast and the former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. She is the author of the bestselling So Many Books, So Little Time.

1. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
This is the second book in a trilogy that began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. "It is: riveting, unputdownable, a sure bestseller."

2. The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich
This book is about Mark Zuckerberg, "an unpopular nerd at Harvard, who invented Facebook (the social-networking site) one night in his dorm room, and by age 25 was a billionaire several times over."

3. The Invisible Mountain by Carolina de Robertis
"This debut about three generations of strong women in late 20th century Uruguay ... is a high-end, Euro Danielle Steel story full of sex, politics, and family."

4. Satchel by Larry Tye
This is about the pitcher born Leroy Paige who at 42 lead the Cleveland Indians to the World Series.

5. The Bolter by Frances Osborne
"The author is the great granddaughter of Idina Sackville, a Jazz Age femme fatale. Osborne recreates her ancestor's life and loves, from England to Kenya and back again."

6. The Slippery Year by Melanie Gideon
A memoir written "without sounding whiny and overprivileged" by a women who is "forty-four years old, married with children and has a satisfying work and social circle."


7. Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones
This autobiography is written by the daughter of "James (From Here to Eternity) Jones. It is a cut above the rest, thanks to Jones' dry wit and some fantastic literary anecdotes."

8. Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga
"The stories in this collection exhibit the author's characteristic subversive sensibility and pointed prose."

9. My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt
"This debut memoir from a Financial Times fashion writer and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud is a cross between a fan's notes and a heartfelt story of a lonely British girl who found more love and inspiration in one movie star than in anyone closer to home."

10. Queen Takes King by Gigi Levangie Grazier
"A novel about a high-flying New York real-estate executive whose divorce will "trump" even the more scandalous ones we've seen in real life."

11. Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa by Mark Seal
"The Vanity Fair editor pens this tale of the conservationist Joan Root. While Root came to prominence as a wildlife filmmaker in Africa with her husband Alan, her story really began after their divorce -- and was soon cut short by her shocking murder."

12. Israel is Real by Rich Cohen
"Cohen's book is about the people and politics that have shaped the young nation."

13. South of Broad by Pat Conroy
"Save this novel from the author of The Prince of Tides for an end-of-summer beach weekend to enjoy the flawed, sexy, melodramatic Conrovian characters."

Stephen King's Summer Reading List

Stephen King helps you plan your summer reading schedule by listing his top 7 favorites:

1. Shatter by Michael Robotham
"Gideon Tyler, the deranged villain of this exceptional suspense novel, is a devil so persuasive he's able to talk his victims into killing themselves."

2. Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
The first book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle -- you will find a "stirring account of how rational scientific thought was born......with swashbucling pirates ... and a smart and beautiful young woman liberated from slavery."

3. The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer
"Here's the best spy novel I've read that wasn't written by John le Carre.

4. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
"His most sentimental, absorbing, delightful novel...and yes, you will like it."

5. Drood by Dan Simmons
"Simmons is always good, but Drood is a masterwork of narrative suspense."

6. Dog On It by Spencer Quinn
You will "fall head over heels in love with the hard-boiled detective novel, which is narrated by the P.I.'s smart mongrel sidekick."

7. Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
"It's a legal/medical thriller, but at bottom it's a story about the American heart of darkness; a small-town marriage under stress."

Read all King's comments about each title at the Entertainment Weekly website.

Aspiring Writers Get Advice from James Patterson

Thriller author James Patterson holds the record for time spent on the New York Times bestseller list. Patterson has sold so many books that it is estimated that one in three U.S. citizens have read one. Now he's offering advice on how he does it.

Patterson's method is simple: "I'm always pretending that I'm sitting across from somebody. I'm telling them a story, and I don't want them to get up until it's finished."

Read the full article at Writer's Digest magazine.

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

The Pulitzer Prize winners for 2009 were announced this week:

Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout -- a collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine that packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating.

Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage -- a searing drama set in chaotic Congo that compels audiences to face the horror of wartime rape and brutality while still finding affirmation of life and hope amid hopelessness.

History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed -- a painstaking exploration of a sprawling multi-generation slave family that casts provocative new light on the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Thomas Jefferson.

Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham -- an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.

Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin -- a collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.

General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon -- a precise and eloquent work that examines a deliberate system of racial suppression and that rescues a multitude of atrocities from virtual obscurity.

e-books Popular Among Women

According to an interview with computerworld.com, Steven Pendergrast, president and chief technology officer of Fictionwise, the e-book seller purchased by Barnes & Noble for $15.7 million earlier this month, said that today's typical e-book reader is a woman, "between 40 and 50 years old, who tends to have a higher-than-average income and level of education."

He also said to expect a "huge surge" in e-book sales in 2010, in part because of the recent addition of e-book readers for iPhone and BlackBerry devices.