Dear Gentle Reader,

Quick email with upcoming events, plus volume 2 of summer reading recommendations.

This Sunday, June 30th, we welcome our cosponsor the North Carolina Poetry Society back for another reading in our monthly series. Please join us at 2pm with featured readers Karen Luke Jackson, Jim Zola and Clark Watson.

Winner of the Rash Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize nominee, Karen Luke Jackson has authored three poetry collections. Jim Zola’s poetry books include One Hundred Bones of Weather, What Glorious Possibilities, and Monday After the End of the World. Clark Watson lives in Chapel Hill, where he writes and performs poems with The Slithey Toves, a spoken word jazz band.

Margot Lester is back to help you out if you find yourself stumped with a writing project on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2:30-4:30 pm as Writers’ Office Hours return. Writers of all ages and abilities can stop by the Writer’s Room and ask Margot anything! She’ll tap her decades of experience as an award-winning journalist and author to answer your questions — and, if you like, offer feedback on your work.  Please note, Margot will not be here in August, so now’s the time to tap into her writerly knowledge or wait until September.

Then Saturday, July 13th we have a great mystery doubleheader. At 11am David Rosenfelt returns with Dog Day Afternoon, the next mystery in this fan favorite series featuring retired lawyer Andy Carpenter. This event is cosponsored with CARE, Chatham Animal Rescue and Education. They will be on hand with information and perhaps a dog or two that needs a home. Then at 2pm, we host two Soho Press authors: Eli Cranor and Gary Philips. Eli’s book, Broiler, has Pete singing its praises. Gary is traveling from his home base in L.A. to share Ash Dark as Night. 

Now it is time for some more summer reading recs!

From Sarah:
Read and recommends:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (pb coming out today)
This is a book for anyone who appreciates masterful plotting with a cast of fully realized characters, each of whom you grow to love (painfully), set against a background of American social history of the last 3 decades.

Red Side Story by Jasper FForde
Regardless of your preferred reading genre I defy you not to enjoy this infectious, literary fantasy/thriller/political-social satire mash-up.

The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia  by Juliet Grames
I have to echo Pete’s enthusiastic endorsement here. This is a completely immersive literary mystery. It was hard to come back to the real world when I reluctantly turned the last page.

Looking forward to:

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth  by Zoe Schlanger
I have just started this but am already enthralled with the subject and the writing.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
I loved Orange’s debut novel, There There, and everything I’ve heard about this makes it sound even better.

A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko
So many readers whose opinions I trust have urged me to read Fedarko’s first book, The Emerald Isle, that I immediately added this new one one to my TBR pile. 

From Tyler:

Read and recommends:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin – An absolutely timeless read that is so poignant and beautiful. I almost cried in my car when I finished it. I have so many feelings about this book and most of those are better fit for screeches than words.

Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration by David Wojnarowicz – An absolutely indispensable part of the queer literary canon, I suggest that most anyone read this book. Total and certain 5/5 stars from me; I went on such a rollercoaster of emotions reading this and parts of this book will never leave my brain.

The Brave by James Bird – You never expect a middle grade novel to bring you to your knees, but this one certainly hit me where it hurt. It is a true tale of a tragic but beautifully necessary friendship that really shows that there is much more to life than what may first appear to you.

Books on his TBR pile:

The Unmothers by Leslie J Anderson – A folky body horror with a female lead (August 2024)

Freedom is a Feast by Alejandro Puyana – A multigenerational story that builds upon a romance between two Venezuelan revolutionaries during the 1960s

Wild Spaces by S. L. Coney – coming of age tale meets Lovecraftian cosmic horror

The Usual Suspects,

Pete, Johanna, Sarah, Tyler, Beth and Keebe