Someone once asked me what my favorite summer read was, and I couldn’t really find an answer. Because really, how can you compare historical fiction to sci-fi to biography to mystery? You can’t. So I decided to make three lists: my top five fiction books, top five mystery books, and top five sci-fi books. And this is it:
Fiction
1. The Mysterious Benedict Society-Trenton Lee Stewart. Fabulous book: great story, amazing writing, good plotline, incredible characters, really drags you in and makes you part of the story.
2. The Betsy-Tacy books-Maud Hart Lovelace. Just really incredible, almost like a biography but better. I’ve read the stories over and over again and love them every time.
3. Anything by Eva Ibbotson. I love her, I really do: she creates characters and worlds that you not only do believe in, but want to.
4. Swamplandia-Karen Russell. It’s a coming of age, family, love/hate/horror story. The plot moves along while keeping it simple, yet complicated underneath. A really stellar novel.
5. The Scorpio Races-Maggie Stiefvater. I love Maggie Stiefvater: she creates these real worlds that are tinged by magic. Not magic that overtakes the story, but magic that helps the story along, helps it. And having it all rooted in actual lore makes it more real.
Mystery
1. Sherlock Holmes-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love Sherlock Holmes: he is my idol. He trumps everything. Enough said.
2. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie-Alan Bradley. My second favorite single mystery book of all time-follows Murder on the Orient Express-but that’s not a summer book. Flavia deLuce is an engaging hero who doesn’t seem to fear anything, and makes murder quite fun.
3. The Charlie Bone series-Jenny Nimmo. Mystery, magic, romance, adventure, the books have it all-and they’re not just for kids: there’s actually a strange amount of subtext as well.
4. Trixie Belden-Julie Campbell Tatham. What can I say? If you’ve read it, you’ll know, if you haven’t read Trixie Belden, you are deprived, and you should.
5. Down the Rabbit Hole-Peter Abrahams. A fun book, not the very best, but entertaining with a good amount of regular old life stuck in between.
Sci-Fi
1. Pathfinder-Orson Scott Card. What can I say? It’s the very distant future on another planet, the characters are fabulous, it’s intellectually challenging, it’s engaging, and it’s written by Orson Scott Card. What’s not to like?
2. Harry Potter-J.K. Rowling. I mean, come on, it’s Harry Potter.
3. The Lightning Thief-Rick Riordan. Percy is a great hero, but Annabeth steals the show every time. The adventure is real, the mythology is even better, and you even have to cheer for the cheesy love story.
4. The Wind Singer-William Nicholson. I know it sounds cheesy but I actually truly enjoy this book: the story is quite intricate yet simple at the same time. Lot’s of fun, really.
5. Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights-Kevin J. Anderson+Rebecca Moesta. Another cheesy one, but these really are pretty good books. They follow the path set to them by the original movies while bringing them into a new age. Very smooth.
So that’s it, those are my top five summer fiction, mystery, and sci-fi books. Not that I don’t love them in the winter as well, but the summer is more for relaxing and having fun than for serious novels.
k8cornelius 