I probably should have published this post in March, but better late than never, right? Here’s what’s on my reading list for spring. My personal comments on books I have read so far are in italics below. Have a suggestion for my upcoming Books to Read this Summer round-up? Drop me a tweet.

1. The Year of Magical Thinking ($9.49) by Joan Didion – From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. (read more)

2. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed ($17.04) by Jon Ronson – I was literally on the waiting list for this book. I think it’s a valuable read for any of us who are working (and existing) in the digital world. For the past three years, Jon Ronson has traveled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us – people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. (read more)

3. The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow your Passion ($12.71)  by Elle Luna – Who hasn’t asked the question “How can I find and follow my true calling?” Elle Luna frames this moment as “standing at the crossroads of Should and Must.” “Should” is what we feel we ought to be doing, or what is expected of us. “Must” is the thing we dream of doing, our heart’s desire. (read more)

4. The Invention of Wings ($16.71) by Sue Monk Kidd – If you loved The Help I think you’ll enjoy this quick read. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. (read more)

5. Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body ($14.39) by Michael Matthews – If you’re a woman you need to read this book. If you’ve ever felt self-conscious about your weight or shape you need to read this book. If you’ve ever tortured yourself with a diet you need to read this book. I just got it and am only 100 pages into it and can already tell that it will change my life. Getting into awesome shape isn’t nearly as complicated as the fitness industry wants you to believe. (read more)

6. The Golem and the Jinni ($13.41) by Helene Wecker – In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. (read more)

7. The Shock of the Fall ($12.48) by Nathan Filer – While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother sneak out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew comes home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back. (read more)

8. Station Eleven (14.97) by Emily St. John Mandel – An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. (read more)

9. Necessary Lies ($12.80) by Diane Chamberlain – It is 1960 in North Carolina and the lives of Ivy Hart and Jane Forrester couldn’t be more different. Fifteen-year-old Ivy lives with her family as tenants on a small tobacco farm, but when her parents die, Ivy is left to care for her grandmother, older sister, and nephew. (read more)

10. The Kitchen House ($10.82) by Kathleen Grissom – Orphaned during her passage from Ireland, young, white Lavinia arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed, as an indentured servant, under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter. (read more)

11. What She Left Behind ($9.00) by Ellen Marie Wiseman – Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past. (read more)

12. The Silent Wife ($9.52) by A.S.A. Harrison – Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. (read more)

13. Drowning Ruth ($10.22) by Christina Schwarz – A gripping psychological thriller . . . In the winter of 1919, a young mother named Mathilda Neumann drowns beneath the ice of a rural Wisconsin lake. The shock of her death dramatically changes the lives of her daughter, troubled sister, and husband. (read more)

14. Crazy Rich Asians ($9.49) by Kevin Kwan – When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor. (read more)

15. Calling me Home ($14.39) by Julie Kibler – Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It’s a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive Isabelle from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. (read more)