Summer Reading List

Lee Child picks The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

I'm going to read The Northern Clemency, a good old-fashioned 600-page novel about two families, set in England over a 20-year period spanning the 1970s to the '90s ... fun for me because it takes place during times — and upheavals — that I remember very well, in the city where I went to college. I'm told it's funny, moving, full of drama and detail and humanity, and I'm hoping it'll prove once again that to really understand recent history, you need to approach it through fiction, not nonfiction.

Child is the author, most recently, of the No. 1 New York Times best seller Gone Tomorrow

Listen to the extended interview: Lee Child talks to TIME about his summer reads