Summer might be coming to a close, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop adding to your summer reading list. We wanted to give you a peek at the bookshelves of the staff at Hawai’i Public Radio. From Captain Cook’s final voyage to a vegetarian with horrific nightmares — there’s something for everyone to keep those pages turning all year round.
Dana Butler, membership manager
Recommends: “Camino Ghost” by John Grisham
“[The] third in a series about Camino Island off the coast of Florida. It has to do with the publishing world and mysteries… It's a light, kind of a fun summer read.”
Mia Yoshimoto, previous executive assistant
Recommends: “Stargirl” by Jerry Spinelli
“A beautiful book on really discovering who you are and letting your creative self thrive because it will make other people around you thrive as well.”
Bill Dorman, vice president and news director
Recommends: “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook” by Hampton Sides
“A compelling look that’s well researched and brings new perspective, I think, to a very important point, certainly in Hawaiian history, but also adds a bit of human history.”
Kelsea Armstrong, board operator
Recommends: “The Lucky Ones” by Zara Chowdhary
“I actually heard about this book on ‘Here & Now’ while I was working [...] and the excerpt was so good that I had to go to Barnes & Noble and pick up a copy.”
Sophia McCullough, digital news editor
Recommends: “Outline” trilogy by Rachel Cusk
“It’s a lot of musings on life and how people relate to each other. A lot of beautiful English writing if you like that kind of fiction.”
Kyla Herrmann, on-air campaign and community event producer
Recommends: “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers
“It's a very fun space opera, science fiction. It really reminds me of the series ‘Firefly,’ if that's something that you dig. It's very queer, it's very diverse. There's secrets, there's characters that I really fell in love with. It's a deep adventure in outer space.”
Pixie Clay, managing editor of news
Recommends: “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang
“It's a contemporary sort of like thriller horror movie about a wife who is noted to be unremarkable by her husband. She turns into a vegetarian after having a horrific dream about really gruesome acts that happens to humans. So she does not want to eat meat anymore, and it kind of delves into the cultural and family dynamics and tension between all of that.”
Have some thoughts on the books we shared? Do you know an author who has a book coming out soon? Share your comments or questions by calling our Talkback Line: 808-792-8217. You can email us, too, at talkback@hawaiipublicradio.org.
