These Two Summer Reads May Just Help You Beat the Heat

By David Brown, Emily Donahue and Alain StephensJanuary 2, 2014 6:42 pm

With the dog days of summer in full swing and fall’s slate of television premieres waiting in the wings, now might be the perfect time to kick back and crack open a book.

Luckily, the Texas Standard‘s got you covered. Kirkus Reviews’ Clay Smith gives us some book recommendations that will, hopefully, keep your mind off the mind numbing heat until cooler temperatures prevail.

Clay’s first recommendation is for a non-fiction book title “Hack Attack: The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch” by Nick Davies, something he promises to be appealing to journalism nerds (us included).

“[Nick Davies] began to find out that Rupert Murdock’s journalists at the News of the world and the sun these fleet street tabloid papers were breaking into the voicemails of celebrities, royals, ports figures, politications …and this is the account of how he broke that story” says Smith. “It’s funny, it’s chilling, it’s just a great account,” he says.

For fiction Smith directs us to “The Invention of Exile: A Novel.”

Written by a debut author Vanessa Manko, the book follows the chronicle of a Russian immigrant as he bounces around various countries  in the early 20th century. “It’s just a beautiful, kind of self-possessed book; she is fully in charge of her voice. Sometimes with debut novels you don’t get that right away.”