Lorna Landvik

There's only time to squeeze one more guilty-pleasure book into these waning days of summer. The View from Mount Joy is a novel to read in the gentle rock of a hammock or with toes mindlessly digging into sand. The story follows young hockey-playing Joe Anderson as he and his mother move to Minneapolis in the wake of his father's death. Joe is a surprisingly well-adjusted teenager who quickly falls in with the hockey team led by captain Blake Erlandsson, down-to-earth Darva Pratt, and high school vixen Kristi Casey. (This is one of those high schools where students' names seem to onomatopoeically suggest their role in the social strata.) Years after high school, Joe ends up running the local grocery store while beautiful Kristi Casey becomes a TV evangelist-cum-politician's wife. A study in what makes for a happy life, this dialogue-driven book makes for a quick, mindless read—a perfect summer-reading swan song.
Wed., Sept. 5, 7 p.m.