"...and like most small demonstrations of love, it had a large impact." Another win by Mitch Albom. A charming story about the man who invented a way to calculate time, and his journey from the past to the present, watching mankind count the minutes and seconds until they are obsessed. As always, Albom plants words of wisdom throughout his story, allowing the reader to truly reflect on him/herself while reading about someone else. I adored this book.

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” A dark mystery by Zafron was my next read this summer. I received the book as a gift from a friend, and devoured it. A story of a young boy who unlocks the secret of a hidden library. He picks up a book and is trusted to keep it safe, but little does he know that that book holds a deep mystery in it's past. A dark thriller emerges from this simple tale, and twists into something more complicated and delicious. This was one of those "read under the covers at night" kind of books. The type of book you just can't put down until you're finished. Furthermore, it's scattered with absolutely divine one-liners that you want to write down and keep forever.

“He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.” This book is pure passion and poetry in novel form. A historical fiction about Vermeer and his muse that would soon be the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. She works as a maid in his household and... you know what happens next. The way Chevalier writes about art, color, and passion... there's truly nothing like it. You find yourself licking your lips and blinking hard at her descriptions. She writes details the way Vermeer painted clouds -- filled with multiple colors that you could never imagine would go together, but do. This book is fire. Simply fire.