Summer reading: 60 titles

W.W. Norton

From Henry Hudson through Manifest Destiny, the story of the fur trade is the story of America.

Golden Gate

The Life and Times of America's Greatest Bridge

Kevin Starr

Bloomsbury Press

A paean to an enduring symbol of California.

Memory Wall

Anthony Doerr

Scribner

Six stories by an author whose work Dave Eggers has called "gloriously alive and absolutely indelible."

Rickwood Field

A Century in America's Oldest Ballpark

Allen Barra

W.W. Norton

Built in 1910 — two years before Boston's Fenway Park — Rickwood Field is a lens onto both America's future and its past.

Savages

Don Winslow

Simon & Schuster

Set in laguna Beach, Winslow's 12th novel involves a local Laguna Beach pot-growing operation that goes up against the Mexican cartel.

Super Sad True Love Story

A Novel

Gary Shteyngart

Random House

An ingenious satire of America in decline: a nation obsessed with life extension and homeland security, betrayed by technology and utterly trivialized.

The Taken

A Novel

Inger Ash Wolfe

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The second mystery, by the pseudononymous author, about detective inspector Hazel Micallef.

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran

One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

Rob Sheffield

Dutton

A look at music, memory and what the songs of our youth mean to us.

The Thieves of Manhattan

A Novel

Adam Langer

Spiegel & Grau

An aspiring writer, jealous of his girlfriend's literary success, decides to fake a memoir, only to see his simple plan become increasingly complex.

This Must be the Place

A Novel

Kate Racculia

Henry Holt

A new tenant in a boarding house brings unexpected upheaval — and unexpected connections as well.

The Transformation of Batholomew Fortuno

A Novel

Ellen Bryson

Henry Holt

The world's thinnest man finds success with P.T. Barnum, only to become bored, until a mysterious woman arrives.

AUGUST

Charlie Chan

The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History

Yunte Huang

W.W. Norton

The story of the first Chinese American detective on the Honolulu Police Force (the model for the character of Charlie Chan) and an investigation into race and popular culture.

City of Veils

A Novel

Zoe Ferraris

Little, Brown

Set in Saudi Arabia, this mystery is a followup to "Finding Nouf," which won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction.

Composed

Roseanne Cash

Viking

The first daughter of country music tells her story.

The Cross of Redemption

Uncollected Writings

James Baldwin

Edited and with an Introduction by Randall Kenan

Pantheon

Essays, letters and reviews — none of them ever previously collected — by America's master chronicler of race and identity, who died in 1987.

Encounter

Milan Kundera

Harper

Essays in which Kundera argues for the importance of art in giving us connections and context, which our world often wants us to set aside.

The Fall of the House of Walworth

A Tale of Murder and Madness in Saratoga's Gilded Age

Geoffrey O'Brien

Henry Holt

O'Brien turns his acute eye onto a scandalous story of the 1870s, an act of patricide that destroyed a prominent family after the Civil War.

Freedom

A Novel

Jonathan Franzen

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Walter and Patty Berglund were once ideal parents, progressive thinkers and model citizens. So why, years later, have they had a 180-degree reversal? What happened?

Fubarnomics

Robert E. Wright

Prometheus

The title of this book, which looks at the U.S. economy's poor health, really says it all, doesn't it?

Juliet

A Novel

Anne Fortier

Ballantine

A young woman searches for the history of her ancestor Giulietta, inspiration for Shakespeare's play about star-crossed lovers.

Let's Take the Long Way Home

Gail Caldwell

Random House

A former book critic for the Boston Globe, Caldwell here looks at her friendship with journalist Caroline Knapp, who died of lung cancer in 2002.

My Hollywood

A Novel

Mona Simpson

Alfred A. Knopf

A story of mothers and nannies on L.A.'s Westside — the first novel in 10 years by the author of "Anywhere but Here."

Packing for Mars

The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Mary Roach

W.W. Norton

The author of "Stiff" and "Bonk" turns her gently ironic eye towards the mysteries of space travel.

The Red Queen

A Novel

Philippa Gregory

Touchstone

The Wars of the Roses from the p.o.v. of Henry VII's mother, who shows her true colors in wanting to place her son on the English throne.

Revenge

Taslima Nasrin, translated by Honor Moore

Feminist Press

A Bangaleshi tale of love, betrayal, lust and consequences.

Rich Boy

A Novel

Sharon Pomerantz

Twelve

A working-class Philadelphia youth makes it to the highest circles of New York society, only to find you never really can leave home.

The Twilight of the Bombs

Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons

Richard Rhodes

Alfred A. Knopf

From the author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," an examination of nuclear challenges facing a post-Cold War world.

Washington Rules

Andrew J. Bacevich

Metropolitan

The retired colonel asks: Is America's armed global presence because of security needs or just to help feed our cheap consumer habits?

You Lost Me There

Rosecrans Baldwin

Riverhead

A thoughtful, lightly told story of an Alzhiemer's researcher who discovers that his deceased wife's perception of their marriage was greatly at odds with his memories.