Summer reading: 60 titles

JUNE

Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl

Daniel Pinkwater

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Pinkwater merges brings a magical realist perspective to YA fiction in the third volume of the series that begins with “The Yggyssey” and “The Neddiad.”

The Clock Without a Face

Gus Twintig

McSweeney’s

This fable for kids includes riddles and a real-live treasure hunt: Nine of the 12 emerald-encrusted clock numbers buried across the U.S. remain to be found.

Colossus

Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century

Michael Hiltzik

Free Press

A history of Hoover Dam by The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist.

Extra Lives

Why Video Games Matter

Ton Bissell

Pantheon

A look at video gaming from the inside — by the award-winning author of “The Father of All Things.”

Frankenstein

Lost Souls

Dean Koontz

Bantam

A spin on the gothic masterpiece has the scientist plotting to use stem cells and nanotechnology to create a superhuman race.

Freedom Summer

The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy

Bruce Watson

Viking

A look back at the most violent time and place of the Civil Rights movement — Mississippi in the summer of 1964.

Furious Love

Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century

Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger

Harper

Chronicle of the grand, 50-megaton relationship of Burton and Taylor.

Go, Mutants!

A Novel

Larry Doyle

Ecco

What happened to the offspring of all those aliens who invaded Earth in 1950s science fiction movies? They grew up on Earth and went to school, of course.

The Hour

A Cocktail Manifesto

Bernard DeVoto

Tin House

A reissue of a 1950 concoction — one part celebration, one part history, two parts manifesto.

How Did You Get This Number?

Sloane Crosley

Riverhead

A second volume of humorous essays by the author of “I Was Told There’d Be Cake.”

The Hundred Year Diet

America’s Voracious Appetite for Losing Weight

Susan Yager

Rodale

Where did this nation’s caloric quest come from? The author wants to know.

I Know I Am, but What Are You?

Samantha Bee

Gallery

Essays by “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” correspondent and comedian.

Imperial Bedrooms

A Novel

Bret Easton Ellis

Alfred A. Knopf

The characters of “Less Than Zero” are approaching middle age — and are just as disillusioned and tormented as they were 25 years ago.

In My Father’s House

A Novel

E. Lynn Harris

St. Martin’s

A hot Miami modeling agency is the scene of the late author’s final novel.

Insatiable

A Novel

Meg Cabot

William Morrow

Vampires take over more than the storyline for a New York City soap opera writer.

Jung the Mystic

Gary Lachman

Tarcher/Penguin

How the Swiss psychologist lived a life rich in the paranormal.

Kraken

A Novel

China Mieville

Del Rey

A prize squid specimen in London’s Natural History Museum disappears. Was it stolen, or is it a god?

The Lion

A Novel

Nelson DeMille

Grand Central

Asad Khalil — a.k.a. international terrorist the Lion — returns and federal agent John Corey is hot on his trail.

Nine Lives

In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

William Dalrymple

Alfred A. Knopf

Followers of the subcontinent’s many and varied religions together weave a portrait of the country.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

A Novel

Aimee Bender

Doubleday

Bender’s second novel involves a girl who cannot eat without tasting the emotions of whoever prepared the food.

Role Models

John Waters

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

The filmmaker offers his gallery of icons — and breaks a few taboos in the process.

Smothered in Hugs

Dennis Cooper

HarperPerennial

The first collection of essays and cultural criticism by Los Angeles’ own dark genius.

The Spot

David Means

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

New short stories from an L.A. Times Book Prize winner.

Telling Times

Writing and Living, 1954-2008

Nadine Gordimer

W.W. Norton

A collection of autobiography, travel pieces, dispatches on the horrors of apartheid and literary essays by the Nobel laureate.

This Is Where We Live

A Novel

Janelle Brown

Spiegel & Grau

The author of “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything” looks at a marriage under pressure in bohemian L.A.

You Never Give Me Your Money

The Beatles After the Breakup

Peter Doggett

HarperOne

The story of the aftermath of the greatest band in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

JULY

The Cookbook Collector

Allegra Goodman

Dial Press

Goodman’s new novel revolves around two sisters in their 20s, one practical and the other a romantic, as they both come together and drift apart.

Dear Darkness

Poems

Kevin Young

Alfred A. Knopf

Not for the meek or indifferent: poetry full of attitude and brazen insights.

The Disappearing Spoon

And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Period Table of the Elements

Sam Kean

Little, Brown

That mystifying chart on the wall in high school chem class, decoded.

Discord’s Apple

A Novel

Carrie Vaughn

Tom Doherty/Tor

Why is a dying man hiding wondrous objects from myth and legend in his basement?

The Four Fingers of Death

A Novel

Rick Moody

Little, Brown

Moody’s genre-bending story follows a down-and-out writer working on a novelization of a horror movie remake and, in the process, telling the story of his times.

Fur, Fortune, and Empire

The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America

Eric Jay Dolin

W.W. Norton

From Henry Hudson through Manifest Destiny, the story of the fur trade is the story of America.

Golden Gate

The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge

Kevin Starr

Bloomsbury Press

A paean to an enduring symbol of California.

Memory Wall

Anthony Doerr

Scribner

Six stories by an author whose work Dave Eggers has called “gloriously alive and absolutely indelible.”

Rickwood Field

A Century in America’s Oldest Ballpark

Allen Barra

W.W. Norton

Built in 1910 — two years before Boston’s Fenway Park — Rickwood Field is a lens onto both America’s future and its past.

Savages

Don Winslow

Simon & Schuster

Set in laguna Beach, Winslow’s 12th novel involves a local Laguna Beach pot-growing operation that goes up against the Mexican cartel.

Super Sad True Love Story

A Novel

Gary Shteyngart

Random House

An ingenious satire of America in decline: a nation obsessed with life extension and homeland security, betrayed by technology and utterly trivialized.

The Taken

A Novel

Inger Ash Wolfe

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The second mystery, by the pseudononymous author, about detective inspector Hazel Micallef.

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran

One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

Rob Sheffield

Dutton

A look at music, memory and what the songs of our youth mean to us.

The Thieves of Manhattan

A Novel

Adam Langer

Spiegel & Grau

An aspiring writer, jealous of his girlfriend’s literary success, decides to fake a memoir, only to see his simple plan become increasingly complex.

This Must be the Place

A Novel

Kate Racculia

Henry Holt

A new tenant in a boarding house brings unexpected upheaval — and unexpected connections as well.

The Transformation of Batholomew Fortuno

A Novel

Ellen Bryson

Henry Holt

The world’s thinnest man finds success with P.T. Barnum, only to become bored, until a mysterious woman arrives.

AUGUST

Charlie Chan

The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History

Yunte Huang

W.W. Norton

The story of the first Chinese American detective on the Honolulu Police Force (the model for the character of Charlie Chan) and an investigation into race and popular culture.

City of Veils

A Novel

Zoe Ferraris

Little, Brown

Set in Saudi Arabia, this mystery is a followup to “Finding Nouf,” which won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction.

Composed

Roseanne Cash

Viking

The first daughter of country music tells her story.

The Cross of Redemption

Uncollected Writings

James Baldwin

Edited and with an Introduction by Randall Kenan

Pantheon

Essays, letters and reviews — none of them ever previously collected — by America’s master chronicler of race and identity, who died in 1987.

Encounter

Milan Kundera

Harper

Essays in which Kundera argues for the importance of art in giving us connections and context, which our world often wants us to set aside.

The Fall of the House of Walworth

A Tale of Murder and Madness in Saratoga’s Gilded Age

Geoffrey O’Brien

Henry Holt

O’Brien turns his acute eye onto a scandalous story of the 1870s, an act of patricide that destroyed a prominent family after the Civil War.

Freedom

A Novel

Jonathan Franzen

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Walter and Patty Berglund were once ideal parents, progressive thinkers and model citizens. So why, years later, have they had a 180-degree reversal? What happened?

Fubarnomics

Robert E. Wright

Prometheus

The title of this book, which looks at the U.S. economy’s poor health, really says it all, doesn’t it?

Juliet

A Novel

Anne Fortier

Ballantine

A young woman searches for the history of her ancestor Giulietta, inspiration for Shakespeare’s play about star-crossed lovers.

Let’s Take the Long Way Home

Gail Caldwell

Random House

A former book critic for the Boston Globe, Caldwell here looks at her friendship with journalist Caroline Knapp, who died of lung cancer in 2002.

My Hollywood

A Novel

Mona Simpson

Alfred A. Knopf

A story of mothers and nannies on L.A.’s Westside — the first novel in 10 years by the author of “Anywhere but Here.”

Packing for Mars

The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Mary Roach

W.W. Norton

The author of “Stiff” and “Bonk” turns her gently ironic eye towards the mysteries of space travel.

The Red Queen

A Novel

Philippa Gregory

Touchstone

The Wars of the Roses from the p.o.v. of Henry VII’s mother, who shows her true colors in wanting to place her son on the English throne.

Revenge

Taslima Nasrin, translated by Honor Moore

Feminist Press

A Bangaleshi tale of love, betrayal, lust and consequences.

Rich Boy

A Novel

Sharon Pomerantz

Twelve

A working-class Philadelphia youth makes it to the highest circles of New York society, only to find you never really can leave home.

The Twilight of the Bombs

Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons

Richard Rhodes

Alfred A. Knopf

From the author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” an examination of nuclear challenges facing a post-Cold War world.

Washington Rules

Andrew J. Bacevich

Metropolitan

The retired colonel asks: Is America’s armed global presence because of security needs or just to help feed our cheap consumer habits?

You Lost Me There

Rosecrans Baldwin

Riverhead

A thoughtful, lightly told story of an Alzhiemer’s researcher who discovers that his deceased wife’s perception of their marriage was greatly at odds with his memories.