The Sunday Paper’s Summer Reading List

As summer kicks off, we're excited to present to you The Sunday Paper's Summer Reading List. Here, you'll find a list of books that have forever fueled our minds, filled our hearts, and inspired us to ask deep questions of ourselves. We have faith that these works will do the same for you. 

This list includes some of the most profound books we've read and continue to turn to over and over. The spectrum is vast, including new books and decades-old bestsellers. Of course, we're incredibly proud of all the books from Maria's imprint, The Open Field.

We hope this roundup will guide you toward a few months of deep reading and contemplation. And of course, since this is the season to dig into profound fiction, we included several stunning novels.

Enjoy—and let us know what you read and love!

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Funny, yet heart-wrenching, The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place; the family you make and the family you came from; and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet.

The Power of Meaning by Emily Esfahani Smith

In a culture obsessed with happiness, this wise, stirring book points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life.

It's Not You by Dr. Ramani Durvasula 

From The Open Field—clinical psychologist and expert in narcissistic relationships, Dr. Ramani Durvasula's guide to protecting and healing yourself from the daily harms of narcissism.

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner

While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this book, Dr. Lerner teaches both women and men to identify the true sources of anger and to use it as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.

Life Worth Living by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

From The Open Field—Drawing from the major world religions and from impressively truthful and courageous secular figures, A Life Worth Living is a guide to life's most pressing question, the one asked of all of us: How are we to live?

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

In her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined.

The Chair and the Valley by Banning Lyon

NEW from the Open Field—Banning Lyon was an average 15-year-old who enjoyed skateboarding, listening to punk rock, and even had a part-time job. But in January 1987 his life quickly changed after a school guidance counselor falsely believed he was suicidal after giving away his skateboard. Days later he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and what he was told would be a two-week stay turned into 353 days that would change his life forever. The Chair and The Valley is a raw, gut-wrenching, and amazing story about healing from trauma and starting over. It is an exploration of the importance of chosen family, the restorative power of nature, and the strength it takes to build a new life in the face of fear and doubt.

I've Been Thinking... by Maria Shriver

In this moving and powerful book, Maria shares inspiring quotes, prayers, and reflections designed to get readers thinking, get them feeling, get them laughing, and help them in their journey to The Open Field—a place of acceptance, purpose, and passion—a place of joy.

The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder

Enriched by Rabbi Leder's irreverence, vulnerability, and wicked sense of humor, this heartfelt narrative is filled with laughter and tears, the wisdom of millennia and modernity, and, most of all, an unfolding of the profound and simple truth that in loss we gain more than we ever imagined.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives.

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

Tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders—the Trappist monks.

The Call to Unite edited by Tim Shriver and Tom Rosshirt

From The Open Field—Those seeking affirmation, solace, and inspiration need only look inside for guidance in finding the light in any crisis. Only in embracing each other can we amplify the love that creates our global community. Only in coming together can we be our happiest, and our best.

Plan B by Anne Lamott

Fortunately for those of us who are anxious about the state of the world, whose parents are also aging and dying, whose children are growing harder to recognize as they become teenagers, Plan B offers hope that we're not alone in the midst of despair. It shares with us Lamott's ability to comfort and to make us laugh despite the grim realities.

Devotions by Mary Oliver

This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.

The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck

From The Open Field—Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

A beautifully written, page-turning family saga of Ethiopia and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined.

All Fours by Mirand July

With July's wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman's quest for a new kind of freedom.

The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing.

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Through unwitting mentors and encounters with sex, birth, and death, the novel explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood—all along remaining a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.

Browse the full reading list here.