River Reads • 2021

Summer reading recommendations from your local literary friends!

We’re so lucky to be one of the many small streams that feed the rich literary river of the Upper Valley. Independent bookstore owners, writers, cartoonists, playwrights, filmmakers, event organizers, venue owners—we all work together to share stories with each other and our community.

In celebration of this literary community, we’ve put our heads together with two of the more recent additions to the Upper Valley literary scene to bring you a list of 25 books to “read by the river” (or wherever else your summer self likes to read).

Joining us to share their river reads are:

• Courtney Cook of Survival by Book, who just celebrated her first full year of publishing her always entertaining and thought-provoking newsletter

• Sam Kaas and Emma Nichols, the new owners of The Norwich Bookstore, one of our very favorite local bookstores

Get the reading list the old fashioned way:
by mail!

By paper postcard, in fact! You can only get this special summer reading list by being one of the first 50 people to sign up here or at Survival by Book.

Here’s how it works:

• Sign up to receive our postcard—there are 50 and they are first come, first served.

• Present the postcard at The Norwich Bookstore for 10% off any book in the store (through September 21, 2021).

• Look for the stamp of a swimming deer on your postcard. If it’s in red ink, you’re holding one of the two special postcards, making you eligible to claim either a copy of our latest Little Dipper, On Tuesday, Elizabeth, by Mary Kane, or a signed copy of the Waterstone’s edition of Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart. (Here again, the choice of prize is first come, first served.)

• Use and follow #RiverReads on Instagram and Twitter to connect with our reading communities.

• Tag us on social media in your photos of your book choices and the postcard.

Sound good? Long live summer reading!