Read like the President!

Describes the author’s experiences as a lifelong surfer, from his early years in Honolulu through his culturally sophisticated pursuits of perfect waves in some of the world’s most exotic locales.

A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

As a child Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel–on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Obsessively watching a breakfasting couple every day to escape the pain of her losses, Rachel witnesses a shocking event that inextricably entangles her in the lives of strangers.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Five thousand years later after a catastrophic event rendered the Earth a ticking time bomb, the progeny of a handful of outer space explorers–seven distinct races now three billion strong–embark on yet another audacious journey: to return to Earth.