Indie Booksellers Recommend Summer Titles on NPR

Just in time for summer reading, on Tuesday, June 4, NPR’s Morning Edition featured summer picks by independent booksellers. Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg spoke to Rona Brinlee, owner of The BookMark in Neptune Beach, Florida; Daniel Goldin, owner of Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Boswell Book Company; and Lucia Silva, book buyer of the now-closed Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City, California. Each briefly discussed a few of their picks and provided a longer list for the NPR website.

Stamberg noted two recurring themes in the booksellers’ selections this year: youth and ritual.

Brinlee’s on-air selections included Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (Knopf), a look at how the habits of many writers, artists, and musicians lead them to accomplish their creative goals; Jill McCorkle’s Life After Life (Algonquin/A Shannon Ravenel Book), a #1 Indie Next List Pick for April; and The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani (Riverhead), which Brinlee described as “a lesson in choices.”

Goldin discussed The View From Penthouse B, by Elinor Lipman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which is about two New York sisters –– a widow and a divorcee –– who share an apartment and arrange “chaste dates” for men and women in the city. “Needless to say, this is a tough business plan,” said Goldin.  His second pick was Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (Simon & Schuster), a compilation of oral histories by those who worked on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Silva began her list with Pacific by Tom Drury (Grove Press), which takes place in Los Angeles. Having been born and raised in the city, Silva said that she and other natives know that “L.A. is this sprawling Mecca that’s really a quirky little town.” Silva’s second selection, The Dark Road by Ma Jian (Penguin Press), is about a family on the run in rural China. About her third pick, Poems to Learn by Heart by Caroline Kennedy and Jon J Muth (Disney Press), Silva said, “If I could choose one book to give to every family to read in the summer, this would be it.”

Visit NPR’s website for the full list of summer picks from booksellers.