CRP's Blog

With the long Labor Day weekend approaching, we’ve rounded up our staff’s recommendations of books to get lost in while enjoying the last few days of summer.

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I’m looking forward to finishing The Bell Jar. It’s easy to see why the book has become such a classic, and it’s something I wish I had read earlier. As something longer for the four-day weekend, my trek through the Neapolitan Novels continues. —Ashley Alfirevic, publicity associate

I’m a huge fan of Chicago-based author Joe Meno, and I used to force myself to put aside his new books specifically in order to read them in giant, enthusiastic gulps over summer holidays—Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, whichever one happened to be closest. It’s been out for a few years already, so it’s not exactly new new, but I’ve had Marvel and a Wonder waiting on my bookshelf for a while now and I can’t wait to crack into it over this upcoming three-day weekend. —Allison Felus, production manager

I feel like, more than any other long holiday weekend, there’s a certain alchemy involved to figure out what to read over the Labor Day weekend. You have to strike the right balance between an engaging story that isn’t too heavy or too engrossing so you can still put the book down and enjoy the last long weekend of summer, and imo Ready Player One fits the bill. Especially if you have a fondness for pop culture of the ’70s to early ’90s, and you want to catch up on reading the book before the Spielberg-directed film hits theaters in the spring. As for what I’m reading this weekend—Bonfire by Krysten Ritter. —Mary Kravenas, marketing manager

I’m going on vacation next week and I’m setting some ambitious reading goals. I’m hoping to get through Cinder by Marissa Meyer, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, and finally finish Sapiens: A History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. As far as recommendations go, The Name of the Wind is a perfect book to get lost in over a three-day weekend. —Emily Lewis, editorial and marketing assistant

I just finished reading Swamplandia by Karen Russell and I loved it. It was a great late summer read. Now, I’m reading The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. I’ve been on vacation this past week and it’s been perfect for the long plane rides. I’m looking forward to finishing it this Labor Day weekend relaxing on my back porch. It’s a psychological thriller set at sea with an English heroine who is a bit of a lush, reminds me of The Girl on the Train. —Cynthia Sherry, publisher

My Labor Day weekend is going to be spent laboring on getting our house ready for going on the market, so my reading will be along the lines of Bob Vila’s greatest or revisiting lessons I learned working with Alison Stewart on Junk. Were I to have a long weekend to just climb into a reading corner and blissfully spend hours on escapist reading, I’d pile up a huge stack of Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books. —Michelle Williams, managing editor