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Read to Roam Book for Summer 2024: "Real Americans" by Rachel Khong
Lily Chen is not endowed with good fortune–even though her mother–a scientist– figured out the genetic code for four-leaf clovers and created a backyard full of them.
Chen doesn’t win raffles or lotteries. She scrapes out a meager living as an intern so that she might have a shot at an entry level gig. “I wasn’t a lucky person,” she tells us. “I never won.”
But she did.
She is unaware (for most of her life) of how random chance brought her parents together in China, she underestimates how the odds put her in the right place at the right time to meet a true love and she discounts how the great wheel of genetics gave her the beloved son she raises on a remote West Coast island.
A character observes: "Aren't we lucky? Our DNA encodes innumerable people and yet it's you and I who are here."
Catch my interview with Rachel Khong on my Big Books, Bold Ideas podcast.
Land of Simmering Volcanoes & Lovely Lakes!
Sirens, give me a bubbling volcano or two and a cool, sparkling lake and I'm ready to book my flight.
So, I come to you with two alluring delights. Next March, I am headed to a land that travel cognoscenti assert is "what Costa Rica was 30 years ago."
In other words, when the rain forests were all but untrodden, the lakes pristine, the volcanoes brooding.
On our March, 2025 adventure to Nicaragua, you'll peer into the crater of a volcano, spot sloths and monkeys and rare birds on nature hikes through the forests, and explore artisan villages high in the mountains.
This is a small group & women's-only expedition. Please email me at SirenSojourns@gmail.com to join the list! https://www.sirensojourns.com/nicaragua
And to put you in the mood, here are three of my favorite books about volcanoes:
Gillian Darley's petite, red-covered book, "Vesuvius" is a delightful meditation on why, of all of the volcanoes in the world, Vesuvius has captured our imaginations like no other. It has erupted nearly thirty times, but no eruption was more devastating and historically intriguing than the one that destroyed Pompeii. Darley writes: "Vesuvius has produced its own literature, imagery, scientific and universal insights...but it has also engendered a huge amount of innocent delight and sheer astonishment."
Tamsin Mather is is a geochemist at Oxford and a dedicated volcano tourist. Her new book, "Adventures in Volcanoland" brings a scientist's curiosity and a "gee whiz" sensibility to the questions of why volcanoes erupt, what's in the stuff that they spew out and why we find them so fascinating.
And I simply can't resist putting a book on this list that my Iceland Sirens read last August. I love this novel and have recommended "The Fires" by Sigridur Bjornsdottir, to many friends. Replete with family drama, cool science and an ending that managed to shock me, it's a terrific read for a "take it to the lake" kind of weekend.
Why are so many crime thrillers set in Australia?
Here's Michelle Prak via Crooked Lane Books & CrimeReads with a half dozen good reasons!
What I'm Reading & Loving This Summer
Looking for a great novel to Take to the Lake or tuck away for a road trip? I've got you covered. Here are some delish made-for-summer reads:
"Real Americans" by Rachel Khong (Published 2024, Interview airing July 12)
"The Good Ones" by Polly Stewart (Published 2023)
"The Cutting Season" by Attica Locke. (Published 2013)
"Let the Tornado Come" by Rita Zoey Chin (Published 2015, Event with author at Honest Dog Books, Aug 29)
"This Strange Eventful History" by Claire Messud (Published 2024, Interview airs July 26)