5 Books Everyone Is Reading This Summer

If You Haven’t Heard of “Gone Girl” Yet, You Will

1. “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn

Possibly the hottest book of the summer, “Gone Girl” tells the tale of a missing wife in a disintegrating marriage. The Wall Street Journal called the book “compulsively readable” and Reese Witherspoon has already snapped up the rights to produce and star in the film version.

2. “Most Talkative: Stories from the front lines of pop culture” by Andy Cohen

Even for those who aren’t “Real Housewives” fans, this book from the franchise’s creator (and Bravo’s executive vice-president of development and talent) Andy Cohen is sure to offer a few chuckles. A meandering through the path Cohen has been on since his early days watching “Charlie’s Angels” and “All My Children,” “Most Talkative” is chock full of celebrity anecdotes, pop culture mishaps and even an underlying thread of what it takes to make it in showbiz.

3. “11/22/63: A Novel” by Stephen King

If you’re looking forward to the movie “Looper,” this book should be right up your alley. “One of the best time-travel stories since H. G. Wells” (The New York Times), Stephen King’s “11/22/63: A Novel” should also keep you busy for a while — it’s nearly 900 pages long.

4. “Dead End in Norvelt” by Jack Gantos

Set in the 1960s, “Dead End in Norvelt,” a young adult novel, won this year’s Newbery Medal for children’s literature. The American Library Assn., which awards the prize, called the book “an achingly funny romp through a dingy New Deal town.”

5. “The Uninvited Guests” by Sadie Jones

What happens when an upper class British family gathered for a birthday celebration must open its doors to the straggling third-class survivors of a nearby train wreck? When the story is set in 1912 and is told by the masterful Sadie Jones, the answer is “hang on to your hat” because who knows what’s going to happen next? “The Uninvited Guests” is the story of “an elegant dinner party that turns into a phantasmagorical mashup evoking Noel Coward, Agatha Christie, The Twilight Zone, Downton Abbey and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.” (NPR)