Find Your Voice Suggested Reading List for Adults

Summer Reading 2023's theme is Find Your Voice! This list of fiction and nonfiction books explores this year's summer reading theme. There are nonfiction titles about developing creativity, building confidence, finding a supportive community, learning to express yourself, and finding your voice. The fiction books on this list tell the story of characters who journey to find and accept who they are.

Updated June 14, 2023
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County)Estacada Library
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Traveling with pomegranates : a mother-daughter story
Kidd, Sue Monk.
Paper Book
An introspective and beautiful dual memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and her daughter Sue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In...
I know why the caged bird sings
Angelou, Maya.
Paper Book
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American...
The marriage portrait
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici...
The alchemist
Coelho, Paulo.
Paper Book
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams." Every few...
The steppenwolf
Hesse, Hermann
Paper Book
This revolutionary translation is the only way to experience the novel as Hesse envisioned it nearly one hundred years ago. The quest for self-discovery never ends, especially for Harry Haller--better known as the Steppenwolf. After a life spent in self-imposed isolation, Harry meets...
The subtle art of not giving a fuck : a counterintuitive approach to living a good life
Manson, Mark
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller * More than 10 million Copies Sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we...
Atlas of the heart : mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience
Brown, Brené
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes, "If we want to find the way back to ourselves and one another, we need language and the grounded confidence to both tell our stories and be stewards of the stories that we hear. This is the framework for...
Untamed
Doyle, Glennon
Audiobook
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD! "Packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today."--Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club Pick) In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and...
How am I doing? : 40 conversations to have with yourself
Yeager, Corey
Audiobook
The artist's way : a spiritual path to higher creativity
Cameron, Julia
Paper Book
"With its gentle affirmations, inspirational quotes, fill-in-the-blank lists and tasks -- write yourself a thank-you letter, describe yourself at 80, for example -- The Artist's Way proposes an egalitarian view of creativity: Everyone's got it."--The New York Times  ...
The namesake
Lahiri, Jhumpa.
Paper Book
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it...
The midnight library
Haig, Matt
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year "A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."--The...
The second mountain : the quest for a moral life
Brooks, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world. "Deeply moving,...
You were born for this : astrology for radical self-acceptance
Nicholas, Chani
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From beloved astrologer Chani Nicholas comes an essential guide for radical self-acceptance. Your weekly horoscope is merely one crumb of astrology's cake. In her first book You Were Born For This, Chani shows how your birth chart-...
Salvage the bones : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book AwardThe National Book Award winning novel from the author of Let Us Descend and Men We Reaped--a gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico,...
The book thief
Zusak, Markus.
Paper Book
The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier...
Your heart is a muscle the size of a fist : a novel
Yapa, Sunil
Ebook
Go tell it on the mountain
Baldwin, James
Paper Book
A Modern Library edition of the renowned black author's classic first novel captures a vivid and provocative portrait of the African-American experience.
The keeper of lost things : a novel
Hogan, Ruth
Paper Book
Full of character, wit, and wisdom, The Keeper of Lost Things is heartwarming tale that will enchant fans of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Garden Spells, Mrs Queen Takes the Train, and The Silver Linings Playbook. Lime green plastic flower-shaped hair...
Where the forest meets the stars
Vanderah, Glendy
Paper Book
An Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post bestseller, and a Goodreads Choice Award finalist. In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again. After the loss of her mother and her own...
Weyward : a novel
Hart, Emilia
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF TWO GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS (Best Debut Novel & Best Historical Fiction) An Indie Next March 2023 Pick * A LibraryReads March 2023 Pick * An Amazon "Best Books of the Year So Far" 2023 Pick
The echo of old books : a novel
Davis, Barbara
Paper Book
A novel about the magical lure of books and summoning the courage to rewrite our stories by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Keeper of Happy Endings and The Last of the Moon Girls. Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer's affinity for books extends beyond the...

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