Top 10 Reads for Late Summer

Every month, Amazon staffers sift through hundreds of new books searching for gems. Here’s what Amazon editor Chris Schluep chose especially for Post readers.

Fiction

The MiddlemanThe Middleman

by Olen Steinhauer

A sweeping espionage thriller by the best-selling author, covering all sides of a domestic terrorist group, from their converts to the FBI agents investigating them.
Minotaur Books

If You Leave MeIf You Leave Me

by Crystal Hana Kim

A literary saga of two ill-fated lovers in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make in the years surrounding a civil war that still haunts us today.
William Morrow

French ExitFrench Exit

by Patrick deWitt

The celebrated The Sisters Brothers author brings us another darkly comic novel, this time about a wealthy widow and her adult son who flee New York in the wake of scandal.
Ecco

The Third HotelThe Third Hotel

by Laura van den Berg

A woman travels to Cuba and discovers her husband there wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before — and he’s supposed to be dead.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Lake SuccessLake Success

by Gary Shteyngart

A deluded hedge-fund manager leaves billions behind in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his college sweetheart. Spoiler alert: There’s a good chance he won’t find it.
Random House

Nonfiction

Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public IconMarilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon

by Charles Casillo

A warts-and-all portrait of the complex woman who rose out of an abusive childhood, dealt with bipolar disorder, and turned herself into a bewitching, maddening, brilliant yet flawed star.
St. Martin’s Press

Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago

by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz

The Road to Perdition author teams with an acclaimed young historian in a dual portrait of the gangster and the legendary Prohibition agent.
William Morrow

The Great American Read: The Book of BooksThe Great American Read: The Book of Books

This book profiles America’s 100 favorite novels, providing a snapshot of each one’s social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts.
Black Dog & Leventhal

Arthur Ashe: A LifeArthur Ashe: A Life

by Raymond Arsenault

The first comprehensive, authoritative biography of “the Jackie Robinson of men’s tennis,” who, after breaking the color barrier, went on to become an influential civil rights activist and public intellectual.
Simon & Schuster

ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of DistractionATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction

by Joshua Cohen

One of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists arrives with his first collection of nonfiction, the culmination of two decades of writing and thought about life in the digital age.
Random House

This article is featured in the July/August 2018 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.