END OF SUMMER READING

San Francisco by Bill Slavin

 August, and we haven't had temperatures above the 70s all summer long. Unusual even for San Francisco. So the coming of August has been a surprise. Schools are about to be back in session. Autumn activities will soon ramp up, but there is still time to get in a bit of good reading and for taking a walk in the town or city we live in. Moving to the City has made our wandering around the San Francisco neighborhoods a different way to go sightseeing. Bill looks up to the skyscrapers and finds interesting photos in the reflections and unexpected views of old and new. I look down and find poetry and artwork embedded in the sidewalks.

I've asked several friends to suggest books that have been good reads in 2025. 

Three books appear on three different lists:

The Women by Kristen Hannah

James by Percival Everett

The Book of Lost Friends by Lis Wingate

The rest of the suggestions sound just as intriguing.

Mary:

An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Mary rates this one the best of the year)

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

The Address by Fiona Davis

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Women by Kristen Hannah

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

by Bill Slavin

Marcia:

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Zero Fail by Carol Leoni

The Women by Kristen Hannah

The Wager by Davi Grann

The Last Russian Doll by Marina Palmer

by Bill Slavin

Kathy:

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

Thursday Morning Murder Club by Richard Osman

by Bill Slavin

Bill:

James by Perceival Everett

God's Country by Percival Everett

The Trees by Percival Everett

Me:

Walking One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge

Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

One last list of mine:

Books that I have on our bookshelves that I probably will never read, but I like the author's subject or the author's point of view, are ones that I want to support.

Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil by Susan Neiman

A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (I'm halfway through)

Lady Bird Johnson by Julia Sweig

One of a series of local bird images embedded on the 20th St T platform