Welcome to summer!
If I’m not the first person to give you the official welcome, I hope I can be the first to do so with books. Mainstreet staffers have rounded up top reads that we think you might enjoy.
For our 5th annual recommendations, we’ve got a couple of children’s literature classics worth reading for adults, a biography and autobiography and two recent releases with very different purposes.
Let’s dive in. And leave your recommendation in the comments below.
I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (1991) by Hank Aaron
Recommended by Publisher J.C. Derrick
Most people know Hank Aaron as the man who broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, but this autobiography sheds far more light on this legend, tracing Aaron’s upbringing in Mobile, Alabama, his unmatched playing career, and his early post-playing career.
While Jackie Robinson’s story of breaking the major league color barrier is well-documented, the road traveled soon after by Aaron and other Black players was no less difficult. At 19 years old, Aaron broke the color barrier in the South Atlantic League, enduring nightly slurs and discrimination in cities such as Jacksonville and Savannah, Macon, Columbus and Augusta, Georgia.
When Aaron set the all-time home run record, he received an avalanche of race-based hate mail, which is quoted in the book. He set the record anyway, but he also set records for RBIs, total bases and all-star game selections—marks that still stand today. He then became one of baseball’s first Black executives, as vice president of player development for the Atlanta Braves.
Aaron’s story of perseverance, courage and consistent excellence is well worth the time.
The Bronze Bow (1962) by Elizabeth George Speare
Recommended by Reporter Lillian Hamman
Set during the heart of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry, Speare invites readers into the life and sorrows of Daniel bar Jamin from Galilee.
The 18-year-old orphaned Jew witnessed his father’s crucifixion by Roman soldiers and lives with a passion for avenging the death, even heading off to train with a band of zealots plotting to overthrow Rome. When Daniel gets word his grandmother died, he returns to his hometown to care for his disturbed sister who his grandmother had been raising.
As friends walk alongside him and events lead him to encounter Jesus face-to-face, Daniel and readers learn what it means to bear one another’s burdens, that there is true freedom in living for love instead of hate and that our greatest enemy may not be what or who we think. “The Bronze Bow” won the second Newbery Medal for Speare, who also won in 1959 for “The Witch of Blackbird Pond.”
Speak to Me of Home (2025) by Jeanine Cummins
Recommended by Senior Correspondent Ronnie Lovler
I just finished reading the novel “Speak to Me of Home” by Jeanine Cummins. I couldn’t put it down and am desperately hoping that Cummins is currently hard at work on another novel.
This book is a story of three generations of Puerto Rican women and their families, and their relationship to the island and each other. Daisy, daughter of Ruth and granddaughter of Rafaela, embraces Puerto Rico; her mother, Ruth rejected her Puerto Rican heritage when the family moved to St. Louis a few years after she married her American husband, and family matriarch Rafaela can never quite relinquish Puerto Rico.
I lived in Puerto Rico for six years, and this book captures the complexities and uniqueness of the island, even as it veers off to mention bits of history. Cummins tells the story of three Christmases in the 1950s, when Mayor Felisa Rincón de Guatier had planeloads of snow delivered to San Juan so that the children of the Caribbean could play in it.
Cummins is the author of another novel, American Dirt, which I also loved. This is the story of Lydia Quixano Perez, a bookstore owner in Acapulco, whose journalist husband was murdered by a drug cartel during a family party. Cummins and her son, Luca, were hiding in the bathroom, and they escaped, undetected. They outsmart the sicarios or hired assassins who are looking for them and ride the immigrant train, La Bestia, to the U.S.-Mexican border. They survive.
The Hatchet (1986) by Gary Paulsen
Recommended by Reporter Nick Anschultz
Middle school students needing a book for their summer reading assignments, may I recommend to you “The Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. Not only is this a quick read, but it’s also engaging and adventures.
This survival story follows 13-year-old Brian Robeson, who has found himself stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness after surviving a plane crash. Robeson is traveling to visit his father for the first time since his parents’ divorce when the pilot suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving Robeson to crash-land the plane.
Having nothing but the clothes on his back and a hatchet given to him by his mother, Robeson has to learn to survive on his own in the wilderness.
I won’t reveal too many more details, but I will say this is a great page-turner. I would even suggest it to an adult who is looking for an easy read that also keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Open to Work: How to Get Ahead in the Age of AI by Ryan Roslansky and Aneesh Raman
Recommended by Sports Director Mike Ridaught
As times change, it’s important that we learn to adapt too. I chose this book because I wanted to learn more about AI and how AI can make all of our lives better, rather than take away our jobs.
AI should not be viewed as a job-killer, but as a powerful assistant that handles routine tasks. This frees up human workers to focus on innovation and higher-level problem-solving and work.
I see AI as an asset, or an ally, where AI does the grunt work and where human society gets better, not worse. This book is a must-read for anyone who views AI as a threat. It offers practical steps to help you pivot your career to more valuable work.
The book highlights the importance of fostering the “5 C’s” — curiosity, courage, creativity, compassion, and communication — as the key to staying competitive in a rapidly evolving job market. By prioritizing adaptable skills over rigid job titles, the authors present an optimistic roadmap for professional survival.
Ultimately, the book concludes that while AI will not replace humans, professionals who leverage AI will succeed over those who do not.
The Inner Elvis: A Psychological Biography of Elvis Aaron Presley (1996) by Peter Whitmer
Recommended by Senior Editor C.J. Gish
As a lifelong Elvis Presley fan, I thought I had read just about every book under the sun that poked, prodded and provided the background about the man, the myth and the legend of this singer, movie star and sex symbol.
Then I cracked open this book written by Dr. Peter Whitmer, a clinical psychologist who opened the first few chapters by examining generations of Elvis’s ancestors before his birth — a long lineage of dirt-poor sharecroppers in the South who suffered multiple traumatic hardships.
This biography delves into the major events and influences that shaped Elvis’s psyche, which included the stillborn death of his twin brother, Jesse, and the strong enmeshment connection he had with his mother, Gladys.
It was enlightening to see what really made the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll tick, what his hangups were with food and women, why he constantly surrounded himself with his friends/bodyguards, also known as “The Memphis Mafia,” his creative energy that was stifled for most of his career by his manager, the loneliness that permeated his life and the tragic decisions that he made that led to his untimely death at the age of 42.
Whitmer does an amazing job at peeling back the layers of a complicated man who rose to international fame but spent his final years trapped by his image.
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (1997) by Sebastian Junger
Recommended by Associate Editor Seth Johnson
I’ve been on a kick of reading books before I watch their movie counterparts: “The Odyssey,” “Project Hail Mary” and, though I didn’t realize a movie was already made, “The Perfect Storm.”
William McKeen, former UF Chair of the College of Journalism and Communications, recommended it to me. At least, he recommended it and around 200 other books in “Stranger Than Fiction,” a roundup of literary journalists of the last century.
“The Perfect Storm” chronicles the lives of New England’s commercial fishermen and their loved ones when a Caribbean hurricane and Midwest storm collide with a Canadian cold front in 1991. The 90-foot and higher waves erased the fishing vessel “Andrea Gail” with barely a trace, and mayday calls sent pararescue jumpers racing across the skies to render what aid they could before needing to be rescued themselves.
Junger educates readers on the history of commercial swordfishing, the body’s reaction to drowning and storm formation in a way that feels, and is, vitally important to the book. He handles each human’s story with care by letting them or their loved ones tell the story where possible.
My favorite part might be all the sources that weave together to help readers understand the gravity and insanity of being trapped in a storm like no other. Consider this quote from William Van Dorn’s “The Oceanography of Seamanship.”
“In violent storms there is so much water in the air, and so much air in the water, that it becomes impossible to tell where the atmosphere stops and the sea begins,” Van Dorn wrote.
It’s a gripping account of a different world from life on land.