Summer Reading List, Part The First

It's 80 degrees a cloudless sky, there's a sparkly pool outside, and last night I finally got to switch my thermostat from heat to air conditioning. As today's the perfect day for a beach read, I'm not going to screw around by putting out a comprehensive list as I want to actually BE in the sun working through my own personal reading list. So, today's choices of summer reads should bring you up to July, when I'll put out the second part of the reading list, followed by a third list in August. Many of my favorite new books (With a Little Luck by Caprice Crane, Always Something There to Remind Me by Beth Harbison, Then There Was You by Jennifer Weiner) aren't 'til mid to late summer, so I don't want to taunt you with excellent reads you can't yet get, hence multiple lists. (Please note that I have the best job in the world because I often get to read early copies of great books.) Anyway, cool? Cool. Let's do this. First up, The First Husband by Laura Dave. If you didn't already fall in love with Dave's crisp dialogue and thoughful character studies in London Is the Best City in America and The Divorce Party, prepare to be completely won over in this tale of what happens when one woman's happily ever after veers wildly off course. Smart, unexpected, and dead-on witty, I just inhaled this book. Laura Dave's novels embody everything that's great about contemporary women's...