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
Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant.
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 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 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...
Steppenwolf :
Hesse, Hermann,
Paper Book
With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, Hesse's best-known and most autobiographical work is one of literature's most poetic evocations of the soul's journey to liberation Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no...
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
Paper Book
Life is hard. But it gets a whole lot easier when you start to talk it out. In How Am I Doing?, you're invited into a series of conversations with yourself to improve your mental health as you discover your purpose, honor your story, and explore who you want to be. Dr. Corey Yeager,...
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
 "Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."--The New York Times "Hugely appealing."--People Magazine "An exquisitely detailed family saga."--Entertainment Weekly ...
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
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--a snapshot of the sky at the moment you...
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
Paper Book
Grief-stricken after his mother's death and three years of wandering the world, Victor is longing for a family and a sense of purpose. He believes he's found both when he returns home to Seattle only to be swept up in a massive protest. With young, biracial Victor on one side of the barricades...
Go tell it on the mountain /
Baldwin, James,
Paper Book
As one of the century's premier American writers, James Baldwin has profoundly altered the nation's social and literary consciousness. Go Tell It on the Mountain, Baldwin's first novel, brings Harlem and the black experience vividly to life, as it starkly contrasts two generations of an embattled...
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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