Bring on the barbecues. Bring on the beaches. But most importantly, bring on the books. This list of summer reads will keep you covered with can’t-put-em-down books from when the first pork chop hits the grill on Independence Day all the way through your last swim on Labor Day.

1. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

If you knew me, you might be surprised that I am a sucker for a good surfing book, and like that powerful, glassy wave, great books on surfing come few and far between. This summer, New York writer William Finnegan recalls his teenage years in  California and Hawaii of the 1960s—when surfing was an escape for loners and outcasts. A delightful storyteller, Finnegan takes readers on a journey from Hawaii to Australia, Fiji, and South Africa, where finding those waves is as challenging as riding them.

2. Crooked by Austin Grossman

As a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, American horror fiction author, I perked up as soon as I read the phrase “Lovecraftian suspense” in the galley description of this genre-bending thriller, which is narrated by Richard Nixon some 20 years after his supposed death. Later, the following passage in chapter two caught my eye: “This is a tale of espionage and betrayal and the dark secrets of a decades-long cold war. It is a story of otherworldly horror, of strange nameless forces that lie beneath the reality we know. In other words, it is the story of a marriage.” Author Austin Grossman clearly has a sense of humor, too. That clinched this as a must-read for me.

3. Meanwhile There Are Letters compiled by Suzanne Marrs & Tom Nolan

This summer, I’m hoping to dip into this book, whose mere existence came as a surprise to me—the story of the pen pal friendship between two writers I’d never have imagined knowing each other: Ross Macdonald, an American-Canadian crime writer and Eudora Welty, a Pulitzer-winning American Southern writer. Macdonald, in particular, has fascinated me ever since I read his haunting Lew Archer detective novels.

4. Ghetto Brothers by Julian Voloj

This work of graphic nonfiction by German photographer and writer, Julian Voloj, is the true story of Benjy Melendez, founder of the Ghetto Brothers, a 1970s-era gang in the Bronx during one of the most violent, drug-saturated, blighted periods in New York City history. The book is also the story of how Benjy, the son of 1960s Puerto Rican immigrants (who also turn out to be secret Spanish heritage Jews), turned the Ghetto Brothers into a peace-loving, multiracial gang that preached nonviolence in the early days of hip-hop. I can’t wait to read this almost-forgotten story that has been brought to life.

5. Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson

Sixty years before Suzanne Collins volunteered Katniss as tribute, American author Shirley Jackson chose Tessie Hutchinson for certain death in “The Lottery,” a staple of required-reading lists. So I was intrigued to see that this anthology of unpublished and uncollected works by Jackson includes an entire section on humor and family, and an essay called “A Vroom for Dr. Seuss.” What does that even mean? I’m looking forward to finding out!