MY LATEST SUMMER book find is a winner: a chilling murder mystery with a secret sisterhood of privileged teens at its center. My own path to finding this gem of a thriller was pretty twisted, too.

It all started with a tantalizing article in the New York Times: the writer wrote of her experience of a dream I happen to share, expatriating herself and her family to Bali. (This was actually more my dream when I was young and single: the idea of moving our brood anywhere again is daunting, though not unimaginable.) I read the article, only salivating slightly, then looked at the accompanying photograph, a smiling family of four, the parents grinning in Balinese sarongs, clutching onto cute kids attempting to escape the camera. It could have been any family, including mine. But I looked closer, and read the caption. I knew this family, sort of: I recognized Bacon’s husband as a high school classmate of mine.

My husband will tell you that I can’t cross a street, anywhere in the world, without running into someone I know. This is not true. However, I do have a knack for remembering those whose paths I’ve crossed, and Charlotte Bacon’s husband is one. (For the record, he was, and I presume is, a lovely man and a very talented artist.)

But I learned Charlotte and I have one more connection, however tenuous. In addition to living my Balinese dream, she’s also quite successfully living out another. She’s written four novels (and, it bears mentioning, won the PEN/Faulkner prize for First Fiction for her first publication, a 1997 book of short stories entitled A Private State. Not shabby.) Given that, unusually for me, I have focused on mysteries this summer (witness my ongoing venture into Joan Schenkar’s superb biography of Patricia Highsmith) I opted first for Bacon’s most recent book, The Twisted Thread.

At Armitage Academy, a New England prep school, senior Claire Harkness is found dead in her dorm room. The newborn son she’s just secretly delivered is missing. A young teacher discovers that girls in Claire’s dorm, bound by loyalty to (and perhaps fear of) Claire, not to mention the traditions of a secret society they call the Reign (think the French Revolution’s reign of terror) know more than they’re telling.

I confess that I’m only a third of the way through, but I had to force myself to stop reading last night in order to go to sleep…and this is the book I’m taking to the hammock with me later this afternoon. It’s been compared, rightly, to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Yes, the two books share genre (mystery) and setting, schools for privileged kids, but they also share elegant, subtle prose. Whatever web Bacon ultimately weaves in The Twisted Thread, I know it will be surprising and well-drawn. I’ve already got an earlier novel of hers, The Split Estate, waiting on my always-overloaded nightstand.

Keep me posted: what’s your latest pick for this summer’s must-read?

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1. Sisterly Reads: Black and White Dani Shapiro is probably well-known to most regular TSP readers;...

Dani Shapiro is probably well-known to most regular TSP readers; her latest book, Devotion, inspired a wonderful blog-friendship between her and our very own Sister Margaret. But thanks to a dear friend (who happens to be a guy – who says you have to be female to be sisterly?) I discovered her earlier novel, Black and White, and made it my first beach read of the summer. Do you need a book to tote along? Read on.

Black and White tells the story of Clara Brodeur and her mother, Ruth Dunne, a famed art photographer. Mother and daughter have been estranged for years after Clara rebelled against being her mother’s primary subject, in a series of provocative, controversial nudes that Ruth insisted on creating well into Clara’s adolescence.

It’s Clara’s older sister, Robin, a successful attorney, who summons Clara back to New York from her home in small-town Maine: Ruth is terminally ill. Tbe sisters’ relationship is nearly as fraught as that of mother and daughter, and Clara’s reentry into her family’s world provokes conflict among all three women. I won’t say more, but if you’re looking for a thought-and-emotion-provoking read about the painful limits of love, family and obligation, Black and White is a beautifully written, utterly engaging choice.

I’m now fully on the Dani Shapiro bandwagon, and need to pick my next of her books. What should I dive into next? And what’s at the top of your tote bag? Need more? We’ve got other summer reading suggestions, too!

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MY KIDS HAVE fewer than four weeks left of school. That means summer, and summer means lots of goodness: balmy weather, barbecue, and best of all, beach reading. True, my beach vacation doesn’t start for a bit, but I’m already starting to pack.

I’m gearing up for a summer of biographies, mostly, as it turns out, of women writers. (Maybe all these lovely writing sisters are having an influence?)

First up (and, I confess, I’ve already started!) is Joan Schenkar’s masterful and inventive life of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith. The Talented Miss Highsmith is a bio unlike any other, appropriate to the prickly, and kind of scary, writer of eerie masterpieces like Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Next up is one that’s been sitting on my shelf all year, Lives Like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon, a controversial recent bio of Emily Dickinson. Who could resist that title? Not me. Last year, Marion said it was her pick for nonfiction book of the summer…well, I’m a little behind. But I’m catching up!

And for something completely different: Bossypants by my wished-for-sister, Tina Fey. Hey, she could become my best friend, right? It could happen. And even if I can’t have her all to myself, at least I can snort til I want to cry reading her sure to be fabulous and funny memoir.

My final pick (so far, anyway)? A surprise, maybe, as it’s about a motley band of tripped-out brothers, not a sister in the bunch. But I’m dying to read The Harvard Psychedelic Club, Don Lattin’s look at the rise of 60s psychedelic culture in the stuffy halls of Cambridge. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius is about as far away from now as anything I can imagine, so I think the beach is the perfect place for a little time travel.

What are your top picks for your beach bag this summer? You’ve already read Margaret’s lovely memoir, right? You’ve perused our massive list of our sister book picks?  Is the stack already teetering on your nightstand? Or are there new releases you’re counting down to? Tell your sisters.

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ARE YOU A SUCCESSFUL list maker? I try to be, I do. I use different tools, on paper and on my computer, to try to keep track of the too-many-to-list obligations and opportunities in my life (not to mention the lives of my husband and kids.) But somehow, I’m not so good at organization, which means I’m not so good at actually accomplishing long-term goals. I can do the stuff that’s right in front of me, but looking beyond the disaster at the end of my nose is, um, a challenge. When it comes to flaws and failings, there’s nothing like a little exhibitionism to keep you honest, so for this summer, I decided to come out of the closet with the things I need and want to get done.

My kids’ insistence on setting goals for the summer (apparently, I’m raising them well, i.e., not too much like me, a notorious avoider of goals and goal-setting) got me thinking. What do I really want for the summer that lies ahead, the way-too-short two months of green and warmth and swimming and farm-fresh vegetables?

My 10 Summer Musts

1. Tomatoes, basil and corn. As much as possible, as soon as they arrive. (Given that it’s been Noah’s Ark-like weather for the last three weeks here, they may arrive exactly never, but hope springs eternal.) I’ll be visiting some of my favorite food bloggers for recipe ideas.

2. Sun on skin. Sunscreen, sure. But that feeling of your skin slowly heating up is one to treasure, especially when you live in a place where winter’s five months long.

3. Fireflies in a jar. My kids have to do this, at least once, if only so I can have the joy of seeing them replicate one of my favorite childhood activities.

4. Bonfire, with s’mores. We’re trying a new version: chocolate graham crackers, peanut butter, chocolate (duh) and homemade marshmallows. I promise a full report.

5. Beach. Seaglass. Hopefully a lobster roll or three. We’re heading to Maine in a couple of weeks to benefit from a sister-friend’s hospitality, so this one should be easy.

6. A run in the rain. Remember that 10-mile goal? I need to conquer my fear of slipping and sliding on the dirt roads that surround my home if I’m going to get there. Though the sun shone yesterday, more storms are coming, and I can’t let them derail my training schedule (because, believe it or not, I actually have one!)

7. Infinite Jest. One of my absolute favorite bloggers has challenged friends and readers to join her in a summer readathon of the late David Foster Wallace’s doorstop of postmodern fiction. I tried to read this when it was first published, and failed, but this time, I’m hoping to conquer it. I guess I better add it to my beach bag full o’ books.

8. A night away with my husband, and without my kids. We’ve only done this once, and it was almost three years ago. I think it’s time. Any suggestions on where we should go for a grown up sleepaway?

9. Get better about keeping in touch with friends both online and real. Does this mean you? Keep me honest.

10. More play, less stress, and a keen eye towards making the most of ever-shorter summer days. Maybe what I really need is this inspired non-planner from designer Keri Smith and Little Otsu.

What about you? What are your must-do summer activities? Who better to share them with than your sisters?

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IN THE WINTER, it’s all about the nightstand: That’s where my teetering, tottering pile of reading material and wishful thinking resides most of the year. (Where I live, winter IS five months long, and that pile is tall.) But now, as the sun finally shines more hours than not, and the end of school approaches, and with that transition, the prospect of lazy afternoons spent–dare I dream?– reading, begins to tantalize.

The classic take on the beach read is that it’s un-put-downable but maybe, just maybe, a little trashy. Nothing wrong with that. But I have friends who insist that beaches are the place to read poetry, or the classics you missed the first time, or are dying to reread. I am a sucker for great non-fiction, so I often find myself toting around a biography or three, or maybe a wonderful collection of letters.

Here at TSP, we’ve already given you loads of suggestions: non-fiction that makes us sit up straight, classics of sisterly-lit you shouldn’t miss, new books that we hope you’ll read and discuss with YOUR sisters. I’ll be adding more picks to those lists over the coming weeks, some old, some new, many definitely borrowed (from the public library, natch.) But in the meantime, tell us: What’s your must-read book of the summer?

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