June 2024 Must-Reads: Bedside Reading Book Recommendations

Summer reading is upon us, and there's no better way to unwind than with a compelling book from Bedside Reading's June 2024 recommendations. Whether you're lounging by the pool or enjoying a serene evening, this curated selection promises to transport you to new worlds. From the nostalgic charm of Brooke Lea Foster's All the Summers In Between at Acqualina Resort to the gripping suspense of Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise at The Pierre New York, these titles are perfect companions for your summer escape. Discover the stories that will captivate your imagination and make your summer reading unforgettable.

Here’s what they’re reading at Acqualina Resort & Residences , Sunny Isle Beach, FL...

When wealthy, impulsive summer girl Margot meets hardworking and steady local girl Thea in the summer of 1967, the unlikely pair become fast friends, working alongside one another in a record store and spending every spare moment together. But after an unspeakable incident on one devastating August night, they don’t see one another for ten years…until Margot suddenly reappears in Thea’s life, begging for help and harboring more than one dangerous secret. Thea can’t bring herself to refuse her beloved friend—but she also knows she can’t fully trust her either.

Unfulfilled as a housewife, Thea enjoys the dazzling sense of adventure Margot brings to her life, but will the truth of what happened to them that fateful summer ruin everything? Testing the boundaries of how far she’ll go for a friend, Thea is forced to reckon with her uncertain future while trying to decide if some friends are meant to remain in the past.

Set in the dual timelines of 1967 and 1977, All the Summers In Between is at once a mesmerizing portrait of a complex friendship, a delicious glimpse into a bygone Hamptons, and a powerful coming-of-age for two young women during a transformative era.

Here’s what they’re reading at River House at Odette's, PA​...

Having spent ten summers on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park, part of her doctoral fieldwork for a PhD in Native American Art History, forty-two-year-old Lynne Spriggs thinks of Montana as her healing place. When she moves to “Big Sky Country” from the East Coast in a quest to reset her life, she has high hopes for what awaits her.

Great Falls, a farming and military town in central Montana, is not what Lynne imagined when she decided to leave city life behind. But her dream of being more connected to nature in the American West comes alive when she meets Harrison, a handsome rancher thirteen years her senior. Wary but curious, with her dog Willow by her side, she leans into the seasonal rhythms of Harrison’s hidden valley and opens her heart to a wild language that moves beyond words. In a modern world where listening is rare, Elk Love explores an intimate place where loneliness gives way to wonder, where the natural world speaks of what matters most.

Here’s what they’re reading at Sonesta Resort Hilton Head, SC...

At twenty-two, Jennifer Cramer-Miller was thrilled with her new job, charming boyfriend, and Seattle apartment. Then she received a devastating autoimmune diagnosis—and suddenly, rather than planning for a bright future, she found herself soaking a hospital pillow with tears and grappling with words like “progressive” and “incurable.”

That day, Cramer-Miller unwillingly crossed over from wellness to chronic illness—from thriving to kidney failure. Her chances of survival hinged upon the expertise of doctors, the generosity of strangers, and the benevolence of loved ones. But what kind of life would that be?

Spanning two-plus decades, this family love story explores loss and acceptance, moving forward with uncertainty, and forging a path to joy. Four kidney transplants later, Cramer-Miller is here to shine a bright light on people helping people in difficult times with a story that will make you want to hug the humans you love. Because sometimes it’s the sorrows that threaten to pull us apart that ultimately unite us in hope.

Here’s what they’re reading at The Pierre New York, A Taj Hotel, NY...

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.
Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives’ tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.

Here’s what they’re reading at The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection , Washington DC...

In the early summer of 1962 in San Francisco, three inmates escaped Alcatraz. Presumed dead, they became the most famous escapees of that inescapable island. What if they survived? On that night there was an unusual heat wave and a calm tide. Perhaps even a stroke of luck. Cincinnatus Jones, the former Frank Lee Morris, is a man reborn. He finds shelter in a deserted cabin in the Oakland Hills. Among the Redwoods in a primordial forest, Cincinnatus finds an unfamiliar yet soothing solace while remaining alert, as he is still a fugitive. He starts painting the nature that surrounds him, imagining he will spend his days as a hermit in the Hills. And then she shows up. Patsy Billie Vaughan, a schoolteacher for the Warden's and Officer's children on Alcatraz Island, is the owner of the cabin. Does she recognize her unlikely guest? Will she turn him in? Should he run? Cincinnatus makes his decision and then they come. Ghosts of California's railway days, pioneers of the environment, jazz and blues musicians of Oakland's Bottom. But when the four Birmingham Angels appear and later the Kent and Jackson State College students, Cincinnatus is broken open. Why him? He is a man who only wants his freedom. What are the dead trying to teach him and why should he care? Take this risky journey to freedom with Cincinnatus, a man who has never learned to trust or forgive, especially himself. Scape Ghost is the perfect escape.

Here’s what they’re reading at Bardessono Hotel & Spa, Yountville CA...

After losing everything but his life, a young man forges a new identity for himself in the jungles of Vietnam and on the gritty streets of New York in this epic and riveting tale of crime, punishment, and redemptionIt's 1969. Devastated by the loss of his parents, 19-year-old Eddie Kawadsky is alone and penniless, his dream of becoming a navy pilot seemingly lost. In desperation, Eddie falls in with the charismatic Roy Cross who talks him into smuggling drugs across the border.

Once in Mexico, Roy betrays Eddie, setting him up to be murdered. On the run from vengeful narcotraficantes, corrupt cops, and his own demons, Eddie flees for his life, changes identities, and-as Richard Austen-joins the Marines, serves two heroic combat tours in Vietnam, and then hides himself in New York City. Over the ensuing 25 years, Eddie becomes one of Manhattan's wealthiest real estate developers, but one haunted by his sins and secrets.

When a long-dreaded visitor finally shows up to extort hush money, Eddie is forced to confront his past. To save his own life and protect the beautiful wife he adores, he must sacrifice nearly everything. But will it be enough to redeem his honor lost so long ago?

With an intricate plot spanning the 1960's counterculture, the Vietnam War, 1970's gritty New York real estate world, the grandeur and hardship of the Marine Corps, and more, Scout's Honor is a sweeping novel of suspense that explores larger themes of morality, guilt, trust, and redemption. Populated with flawed yet compelling characters, Scout's Honor will appeal to fans of both character-driven literary fiction, thrillers, and redemption tales.

Here’s what they’re reading at Esmé Hotel, Miami Beach, FL...

1908, Long Island: For Millie Turner, the young and beautiful wife of a powerful New York stockbroker, Rose Briar Hall—a gleaming edifice of white marble on the North Shore—is more than a home. Every lavish detail speaks of Charles Turner’s status and wealth, and its stylish interior is testament to Millie’s sophistication. All that’s left is to prove her worthiness to be his bride. What better way than to throw a grand party for New York’s social elite?

After painstaking planning, the night of the event arrives and all is perfection—until Millie wakes to a cold, eerily quiet house, and a gray cloud where her memory should be. Can it be true that she has been in and out of consciousness for weeks, ever since the party took a terrifying turn? Millie recalls nothing. But her friends have shunned her, and it soon becomes clear that if she can't find out what really happened that night, much more than her reputation will be at risk . . .

As the house that promised so much happiness begins to feel more like a prison, Millie wonders whether a woman alone, even a wealthy one, can ever be entirely safe. And if she succeeds in finding the truth, will it bring relief, or shake her marriage, and her life, to the core?

Here’s what they’re reading at The Morrow Hotel, Washington DC...

What if every time you had a self-critical thought, you heard it in a man’s voice? The truth is not far off. Living in a patriarchy, women absorb a lifetime of messages that say your worth is defined by your looks, your accomplishments, and how well you take care of everyone around you. In fact, these messages are so pervasive that, even knowing they exist, they still manage to program themselves into our brains. The result is that women end up feeling anxious, guilty, and vaguely ashamed of themselves no matter how much they do for others or achieve for themselves.

So how do we deprogram our thoughts from patriarchy’s corrosive influence? And once we do, how can we create new, self-empowering beliefs?

Master Certified Life Coach and host of the UnF*ck Your Brain podcast Kara Loewentheil knows how. Despite graduating from Harvard Law School and getting her dream job, Kara spent her twenties and thirties feeling insecure and anxious, until she learned how to change her thoughts—which led her to become a coach. In Take Back Your Brain, she draws on cognitive psychology, feminist theory, and years of experience as a neuroplasticity-focused coach to break down how the patriarchy hijacks women’s brains, and how women can get free. To bridge the gap between your inner voice and your true potential, she says, you must begin with your thoughts. By using the skills in this book to literally rewire your brain, you can create new thought patterns that will directly transform outcomes in your life.

Ultimately, Take Back Your Brain invites you to replace the thoughts that no longer serve you and make room for a kind of confidence you never thought possible. Because when women unleash their true power, they awaken new possibilities for the world.