AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Hey, you out there. Yes, you. Is this thing on? (Laughter) I heard you were looking for a good book to bring to the beach this summer. Well, do we have you covered – thanks to NPR’s Books We Love. It has these suggestions for novels from some of our co-workers.
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ELENA BURNETT, BYLINE: My name is Elena Burnett, and I’m a producer for All Things Considered. I got the chance to interview Andrew Sean Greer about his new book, “Villa Coco,” and he told me that he set out to write a book that was an utter delight and that he hoped that once you finished it, you would just hold it to your chest and hope the phone wouldn’t ping for a while. And I have to say there is no better way to describe the sunny introspection left in the wake of this novel.
It is an utter delight. I mean, who wouldn’t want to follow a bewildered American man in his early 20s around a charming Tuscan country house, trying to attend to every whimsical request from his employer, who, by the way, is a boisterous 92-year-old baronessa with a propensity for light theft and for making up the ends to books she never finishes? But I have to say, the remarkable thing is Greer doesn’t use humor to disguise or distort the very real confusion and despair that comes with coming of age. Instead, he proves that the funniest way of telling a story is often the most honest.
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REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: Hi, my name is Rebecca Hersher, and I cover climate change here at NPR. The book I want to recommend is “Vigil” by George Saunders. This is a book about ghosts, although it’s not particularly creepy. The story is basically about this oil executive who is on his deathbed and he’s reflecting on his life, and there are ghosts coming in, some to help him, some to haunt him. It’s really a story about regret and what it means to apologize for things that you did that hurt other people, even people you don’t know, and whether it’s ever too late to atone. Like, can you run out of time?
One thing I love about George Saunders’ writing is that even when he’s tackling really heavy themes, there’s usually comedy. And this book is funny. I also love that this book is sort of about climate change ’cause that’s what I report on here at NPR, and I think we need more novels that help us understand those topics.
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HAFSA FATHIMA, BYLINE: Hey, I’m Hafsa Fathima. I’m a producer at NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. A book I really enjoyed reading this year was “This Story Might Save Your Life” by Tiffany Crum.
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FATHIMA: It’s about two best friends, Benny and Joy, who run a survival-themed podcast. That podcast becomes a hit. They get a ton of fans, and life is good. Except one day, Joy and her husband go missing, and Benny becomes the prime suspect in that case. Now he has to uncover what really happened and also think about what their relationship was really like. This book has all the standard trappings of your usual thriller. It’s high stakes, has lots of twists and turns. But I was also really moved by its themes of friendship and found family.
LIZ BAKER, BYLINE: Hi, my name is Liz Baker. I’m a producer on the National Desk. And the book I chose is called “This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me” by Ilona Andrews – which is not one person. It’s actually a couple that writes together under one name.
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BAKER: The main character is modern-day normie Maggie. She wakes up one day to find she’s been magically transported into the world of her favorite fiction series. But unlike other literary protagonists who are stuck in this kind of common plot device, Maggie lands in fantasyland with no transferable skills, no allure. She’s not extra beautiful or anything. And she has no clothes. And so she has to gamble her extensive fangirl knowledge of the original series timeline.
But that timeline changes every time she uses that knowledge to get ahead and survive. So with every butterfly she steps on, Maggie has to save the kingdom that, by the way, she knows is doomed because she’s read the series. But she has to do all that without becoming a main character. It’s a really fun read, but I will warn you – if you’re somebody who has no patience, maybe wait to pick this one up because you are going to be stuck on a cliff-hanger until they put out the next book.
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DIAA HADID, BYLINE: My name is Diaa Hadid, and I’m an international correspondent for NPR. I cover South Asia and Afghanistan. The book I’m going to recommend is “Rebel English Academy” by Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif. The cast of this short, vibrant book include a lusty, drunk intelligence officer. There are men who seem to spontaneously combust – and in fact, they’re the mystery some people in the story are trying to solve – and a gay man who lives in a mosque, who only wants to teach revolution. And maybe he’d like to fumble around in a darkened movie theater with a stranger.
Hanif is always droll, a little bit weird and a little bit wild. You don’t need to be interested in Pakistan or even South Asia to read Hanif – although it helps. Just bring your curiosity, your willingness to see the multitudes contained in one person and one complicated place like Pakistan.
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RASCOE: Those recommendations again – “Rebel English Academy,” “This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me,” “This Story Might Save Your Life,” “Vigil” and “Villa Coco.” And for more Books We Love, you can head to npr.org/books. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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