Hey folks,

It's time for us to vote on what we'll read as a community throughout June.

I've curated what I feel is a great selection of fiction and nonfiction works that are accessible and fun for readers at almost any level.

Take a look at the descriptions to get an idea of the available options, then cast your vote using the button below!

The Books

Elevator in Sài Gòn by Thuân - A Vietnamese woman flies to Paris after her mother dies in a freak elevator accident, then starts uncovering a secret history that stretches back to wartime Saigon. Slim, strange, and quietly devastating.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - The Joad family loads up the truck and heads west. You know this one, or think you do. Worth finding out which.

Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson A year embedded with the Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels, written before Thompson became a brand. The reporting is sharp, the prose is feral, the ending is famously bad for him.

The Eye of the Monkey by Krisztina Tóth A Hungarian novel about a woman piecing together a fractured family history across decades of upheaval. Tóth is one of the most interesting voices working in Hungarian literature right now.

As always, we will be using ranked choice voting for our monthly read choice. If you're not familiar with ranked choice voting, simply rank the books from what you'd like to read the most to what you'd least like to read and submit your answer!

You can vote here: https://strawpoll.com/e2naXV7V0yB

Voting closes Tuesday, June 3. The read kicks off Sunday, June 8.

My love for reading began when I was quite young. I fondly remember a few books from my elementary years that I still think about to this day. My favorite book from my childhood was Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. It was about this kid whose class was tasked with writing to authors in hopes of getting a letter back, and he haveformed a friendship with the author in the book.

I also fell in love with the Animorphs series as a teenager. Then again, who didn't love teenagers who could transform into animals?

As I've grown older, my taste and approach to reading have drastically changed. I've become more aware of the time I commit to books, and that has helped shape the types of books I read and why I read them.

Much like a well-balanced diet, you can't expect to eat just pizza and reap the benefits of someone who's eating vegetables, protein, and carbs consistently with each meal.

Creating a sustainable reading habit, especially one you'll enjoy and feel accomplished in, requires a well-balanced approach. Below is a running list of books that I consistently recommend for various reasons.

In the near future, I'm going to break down this list and explain why I recommend them, and sort them based on where you might be in your life or reading journey.

But for now, check out some of these books, give them a shot, and be sure to come back and let me know what you think!

Evergreen Book Recommendations

​East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Cigarettes by Harry Mathews

Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

White Noise by Don DeLillo

How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Midnight In Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder In Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Yr Dead by Sam Sax

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie

Poor People by William T. Vollman

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Matias Enard

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Things In Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

Founding Partisans: Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and the Brawling Birth of American Politics by H.W. Brands

Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went To War In 1914 by Christopher Clarke

A New World Begins by Jeremy Popkin

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Sengoku Jidai by Danny Chaplin

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
​Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kohlker

Sad Tiger by Niege Sinno

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

My Struggle Books 1-6 by Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima

A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut

1776 by David McCollough

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

The Graves Are Walking by John Kelly

Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich

Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge

Man-Eaters of Sunderbans by Tahawar Ali-Khan

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon