10 Great Summer Books Lists for 2013

Now that we are a day away from the 4th of July, it’s time for one of my favorite summer activities, rounding up some of the many helpful and downright addictive Summer reading lists published recently. Reading/skimming these lists provides a window into the world of other people and organizations — how they are planning to spend their summer; outlining their desires, hopes and good intentions, looking for the promise that a great book can deliver.

Here are ten of the many lists that aim to guide us to reading bliss for the next couple of months:

Financial Times: Summer books guide
The Guardian: Summer Reading
Los Angeles Times: Summer books
NPR: Summer Books 2013
Oprah/O: O’s 2013 Summer Reading List
Publishers Weekly: Best Summer Books 2013
Slate: Summer Reading 2013
Stanford Graduate School of Business: Top 13 Business Books to Read This Summer
TED blog: Your mega summer reading list: 200 books recommended by TEDsters
USA TODAY: 30 Hot Books for Summer

Along with the Los Angeles Times list, in the article “David L. Ulin’s summer reading project,” the newspaper’s book critic captures the particular pleasures and motivations of summer reading: “Reading, after all,” Ulin writes, “takes place, in many ways, out of time: We leave ourselves behind a little whenever we immerse in a book. That’s the best thing about it, that sense of giving yourself over to another world.”

What books are you reading this summer? Do these and other lists influence your choices?