When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter

I gobbled Graydon Carter’s memoir When the Going Was Good for a yummy summer read. Carter was the longtime editor of Vanity Fair, starting in 1992, and he writes about an extravagant magazine world that is long gone. It’s one that most magazine editors never experienced—certainly not at Sarasota Magazine—with endless expense accounts, an abundance of booze, the best seats at the best restaurants and staying at five-star hotels to cover stories. It was an era of huge egos, celebrity writers and major breaking stories that revealed Deep Throat, covered the O.J. Simpson trial, exposed the tobacco industry’s evil duplicity and profiled Caitlyn Jenner when she came out. Magazines had deep editorial and art budgets back then—they actually had editors called dot checkers who put a dot over every word they read so everyone would know who was accountable if a fact was wrong or a word misspelled. Those days have vanished, but the pleasure of reading a magazine—and a book about magazines—remains. —Susan Burns, editor in chief

In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani

Leïla Slimani’s In the Country of Others is set in 1950s Morocco, as the country chafes against French colonial rule. The main character, Mathilde, is a French woman who marries a Moroccan soldier and follows him home, only to find herself alienated by the land, the people and the growing tension between colonizer and colonized. The novel’s power lies in the quiet domesticity through which it renders political upheaval: marriage, motherhood, farming and neighbors. But Slimani’s book, published for American readers in 2021, reaches beyond the past. The questions her novel poses—who belongs? Who gets to decide?—echo today. Europe is once again policing identity; in the U.S., immigration and race remain lines of division. The Country of Others isn’t an allegory, but it doesn’t have to be. The borders it draws—between men and women, colonizer and native, insider and outsider—still hold. Slimani suggests the past isn’t behind us. It’s the country we still live in. —Kim Doleatto, associate editor

Silhouette in Diamonds: The Life of Mrs. Potter Palmer by Ishbel Ross

I grew up next door to Historic Spanish Point in Osprey, and before a quick trip to Chicago this month, I picked up Palmer’s biography to learn about her more glamorous life in the Windy City. Dubbed the “Queen of Chicago,” Palmer was chairman of the Board of Lady Managers for Chicago's World’s Columbian Exposition (aka World’s Fair). She stacked the 117-woman board with society women and suffragists alike, a progressive move at the time, and just one of the fascinating facets of her life. Written in 1960, Silhouette in Diamonds is a beautiful narrative that takes artistic liberties with how Palmer may have been feeling during different transformational events and pairs them with detailed descriptions of her show-stopping collection of jewels and fashionable gowns. Connecting with the story of one of our local legends has been an eye-opening delight." —Lauren Jackson, associate editor

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Even before I finished Daniel Mason’s novel North Woods, I knew it had earned a special place in my heart for years to come. I don’t mean special in a purely sentimental way, though I deeply loved the story, but special in the sense that it actually did something to me that I'll remember. It made my brain perform acrobatics and stick the landing before I even realized I was in the air. North Woods is about legacy; about how we’re connected to other living beings, even across lifetimes; about my dear home state of Massachusetts. It's a touch fantastical, and it's comprised of dozens of different stories delivered in distinct tones of voice. What Mason was able to accomplish through such an artful use of polyphony makes it uniquely experiential… but as a story and work of prose it’s also just so great. Is it more of a meadow read than a beach read? Maybe. But seasonality goes out the window when you’re dealing with something so monumentally beautiful. — Rachael Ferranti Gard, senior marketing strategist

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

In the summer, especially, I'm a sucker for a sweeping story about generations of families and their secret histories—even more if they take place in a remote country house or a summer camp. Nothing scratches this itch more than Liz Moore's The God of the Woods, a 496-page brick of a book that you won't want to put down. Told through multiple points of view, its inciting incident is the disappearance of Barbara Van Laar from the summer camp her family owns in August 1975—14 years after her older brother, Peter, also mysteriously vanished from same place. The book is a twisty mystery, but it's also a look into the inner workings of Barbara and Peter's family—the ice-cold, wealthy Van Laars, whose sprawling Adirondacks estate glowers over the camp—and of the working-class town and people surrounding them, many of whom work at the camp and Van Laar estate. Don't let the size of this book deter you—Moore is so good at pacing that you'll fly through it. —Megan McDonald, managing editor