Relax. Enjoy. Read.

Summer is a great time to exercise your curiosity and follow your instincts toward a new interest. So why not experiment and create a whole new area of the world to investigate. Books can be a great companion to your summer. Need some ideas? To get you started, PrepMatters tutors and counselors have put together a list of suggestions—a few sparks that may send you on a path to the unexpected.

Ned Johnson

Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College, by Andrew Ferguson

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson

Aaron Golumbfskie 

The Eight, by Katherine Neville

Secret History, by Donna Tartt

John Jones

Contact, by Carl Sagan

Band of Brothers, by Stephen E. Ambrose

Sharn Hanson

The Martian, by Andy Weir

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Beth Provinse

Lincoln’s Last Trial, by Dan Abrams and David Fisher

Ryan Warren

Franny & Zooey, by JD Salinger

The Paper Menagerie, by Ken Liu

Susan Dykeman 

Two trilogies:

The Kingkiller Chronicle, by Patrick Rothfuss

The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin

James Murphy

The Mind’s Eye, by Oliver Sacks

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Sardo

Maureen Delaney

The Science of Well-Being, by Dr. Laurie Santos (Online course from Yale University, with reading; free online from Coursera)

Mindset, by Carol Dweck

Jeff Knox

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Yasmeen Kahn

Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson

The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brené Brown

Rachel Jones

House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III

Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach