Culture Crash: 4 Books to Read This Summer

Welcome to Culture Crash, where we examine American culture – what’s new and old in entertainment.

Summer is finally here, and if you’re like me, that means it’s time to get to business on that reading list. I’ve always found that my favorite entertainment source in the summer is to go read a book in the great outdoors.

Of course, picking the right book can be a challenge, because the last thing any of us want is to be bored by a book. Here are four books I’ve read recently that you may want to seek out this summer.

First up, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Crouch is most famous for his Wayward Pines series, but don’t sleep on his 2016 scifi thriller Dark Matter. The book tells the story of a man who is abducted and wakes up in another reality. Using some fascinating science fiction, the book is a non-stop page turner perfect for fans of Black Mirror.

Another science fiction read is Elan Mastai’s romp All Our Wrong Todays. The book is similar to Dark Matter in that it deals with alternate realities, but Mastai’s book tells the story of a man from a different world who stumbles into our reality…and finds it to be underwhelming. The book is less a thriller a more of a comedy.

If science fiction isn’t your thing, Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips tells a heart-pounding story set in a reality all too real. The book centers on a mother and her young child as their afternoon at the zoo becomes a nightmare after they hear gunshots ring out. The reader is swept along as the two of them try to run, hide, and survive. Set all in one day, Fierce Kingdom’s 290 pages can even be read in one sitting.

And finally, if you are interested in history, you may want to check out The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. The book tells a dramatized version of true story with national significance: the race to illuminate America between Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the rouge Nikola Tesla. The book paints a wonderful picture of days since past and may just ignite a passion in you to get to the bottom of who really deserves the credit for the incandescent lightbulb.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips, and The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore are all available now. For links to more information about all three, visit Viewpoints Online dot net… and when you finish them, feel free to let us know your thoughts on Twitter at Viewpoints Radio.

I’m Evan Rook.