Adult Summer Reading 2025

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Adult Summer Reading at the Ferguson Library


Level Up is the theme for our Adult Summer Reading Club, which begins June 14 and runs through the summer. Pick up a bookmark at any branch and participate in our Adult Challenge, with a chance to win prizes. Check our calendar for information on all our summer programs.

Let us Help You Meet Your Summer Reading Goals
 

Book Club Services 

The library has multiple copies of many great selections and award-winning books, and can provide titles in various formats. Book discussion groups can also get extended loans. We also provide book discussion guides and title suggestions to help you lead your discussion. Click here to learn more.


Find Your Next Great Read

Click here to fill out a form and a librarian will send you three suggestions based on your responses and preferences.

Book Suggestions for Adult Summer Reading

 


 

The Enigma Girl

The Enigma Girl

From internationally bestselling author who is "filling the gap left by Len Deighton and John le Carré" (Evening Standard ) comes a propulsive espionage thriller for fans of Mick Herron, Daniel Silva, and Olen Steinhauer. Meet disgraced M15 agent Slim Parsons, a character who-like Lisbeth Salander-will sear your soul. Slim Parsons is all but burned. When her last deep-cover job for M15 ended with a life-and-death struggle on a private jet, she went on the run from her deadly target-a conniving businessman and money launderer codenamed "Hagfish." Now she's back at home, in hiding from her angry bosses in the Security Service, who have accused her of being overly violent and unsuitable for the role of an M15 operative. But after several months off the grid, Slim is called back to another job-Operation Linesman-where she is asked to infiltrate a news website Middle Kingdom whose explosive articles clearly show that they've hacked into the most high-security government databases. She accepts the assignment on condition that the Security Service searches for her missing brother. But Linesman turns out to be anything but simple. Slim uncovers a curious connection between the Middle Kingdom hackers and the legendary Bletchley Park codebreakers. Her new colleagues are becoming suspicious of her intentions, and Hagfish is out for revenge and threatening M15 itself as it all comes together in a shocking crescendo. And all the while she is being watched by someone even deeper in the shadows than she is.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize. In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play. Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

I Want to Burn This Place Down: Essays

I Want to Burn This Place Down: Essays

At the heart of this funny, acerbic, and bravely honest book of essays is Maris Kreizman, a former rule follower and ambition monster who once believed the following truths to be self-evident: that working very hard would lead to admission to a good college, which would lead to a good job at a good company, which would then lead to personal fulfillment and a sense of purpose, along with adequate health care and eventual home ownership and plenty of money waiting in a retirement account. Like any good Democrat and feminist, she believed that if she just worked hard and played by the rules, she was guaranteed a safe and comfortable life.

Now in her forties, the only thing Maris Kreizman knows for sure is that she no longer has faith in American institutions or any of their hollow promises. Now she knows that the rules are meant to serve some folks better than others; and, actually, they serve no one all that well—not even Kreizman. Disturbed by the depth and scope of the liberal myths in which she once so fervently believed, Kreizman takes readers on an intimate journey that revisits some of her most profound revelations, demonstrating that it’s never too late to become radicalized.

With Kreizman’s signature wit and blunt self-reflection, and more than a little transformative rage, I Want to Burn This Place Down is a book for anyone who wishes they could go back in time to give their younger selves the real truth about the fractured country they have inherited—and the encouragement to rebuild something better in its place.

JFK: Public, Private, Secret

JFK: Public, Private, Secret

From the New York Times bestselling Kennedy historian and author of Jackie: Public, Private, Secret comes the other side of the story-her husband's: JFK: Public, Private, Secret. In this deeply researched presidential biography, J. Randy Taraborrelli tells John F. Kennedy's story in a provocative new way by revealing how public moments in his life were so influenced by private relationships with not only his family, but also Jackie's. But it's the secret life that also surprises. As Congressman, Senatorand finally President, JFK was a magnet for women. With exclusive interviews and meticulous research, Taraborrelli reveals not only the man's many affairs but also the strength and resolve his wife showed in coping with them. JFK's women include: ¨ Jackie Kennedy, and her rules of engagement for Jack's infidelity: "Show me some respect and don't rub it in my face" ¨ Inga Arvad. JFK's first love and how it ended over fears she was a Nazi spy. ¨ Marilyn Monroe. Why Jackie insisted JFK end it with her: "This one's different, Jack. This one's trouble!" ¨ Finally - the truth about of JFK's relationship with Marilyn exclusively from Marilyn's closest friend... and how it wasn't what people believed. ¨ Joan Hitchcock. The mysterious brunette who comforted Jack after Jackie threatened to file for divorce. Other great stories: ¨ How JFK's grief over his infant son caused him to make rash decisions that pulled the USA into Vietnam for the first time. ¨ The real truth, once and for all, about the Mafia's involvement in JFK's election. ¨ The startling drug abuse that clouded the President's decisions during the disastrous Bay of Pigs... ¨ ... and how Jackie managed to wean him from those drugs in time for the nearly cataclysmic Cuban Missile Crisis. ¨ The Kennedys' secret plans to renew their wedding vows, made just before JFK's assassination. The JFK presented in Taraborrelli's definitive biography is a complex and endlessly fascinating historical figure, despite-and maybe even because of-his many flaws

Dream Count: A Novel

Dream Count: A Novel

The story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from The Washington Post , Harper’s Bazaar , Marie Claire , Elle , Oprah Daily , Readers Digest , The Seattle Times , LitHub, The Chicago Review of Books , BET, and Radio Times Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

The Book Club for Troublesome Women

The Book Club for Troublesome Women

Margaret Ryan never really meant to start a book club . . . or a feminist revolution in her buttoned-up suburb. By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia—one of Northern Virginia's most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman's Place—a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn't that feel like enough? Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte's orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women—Bitsy and Viv—to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they'd been sold isn't all roses and sunshine—and that their secret longing for more is something they share. Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments—and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives. The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a humorous, thought provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year—as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood. "Bostwick's latest is ideal for fans of historical fiction and those who enjoyed Bonnie Garmus's Lessons in Chemistry, Kristin Hannah's The Women, or Kate Quinn's The Briar Club, which explore the historical roles of women and the challenges they faced within a society structured to define and limit their roles in and out of the home.

My Name is Emilia del Valle

My Name is Emilia del Valle

In this spellbinding historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea and The Wind Knows My Name, a young writer journeys to South America to uncover the truth about her father—and herself. In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny. A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name Is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.