HOT OFF THE PRESSES \ For your summer reading in July 2009

What’s on your summer reading list? Maybe you’ve got it all worked out already. But, if you don’t, you may want to check out the following suggested by The Los Angeles Times editors. All come out this month:

JULY

“American Adulterer” by Jed Mercurio (Simon & Schuster): A fictional portrait of John F. Kennedy as husband, father, leader of the free world — and all too human.

“Best Friends Forever” by Jennifer Weiner (Atria): Two old high school best friends overcome a gap of 15 years and their differing social status to help each other in a crisis.

“The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World” by Paul Collins (Bloomsbury): On the trail of the 1623 document — which contains 36 of Shakespeare’s plays — from its creation until the present day.

“Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It: Stories” by Maile Meloy (Riverhead): Explorations of the battles that ranchers, farmers and other denizens of the American West wage on behalf of love.

“Camus, A Romance” by Elizabeth Hawes (Grove Press): A biography of the French philosopher that doubles as a memoir of the author’s own effort to understand him.

“Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame” by Zev Chafets (Bloomsbury USA): A history of one of sports’ holiest places.

“Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom From the Urban Wilderness” by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Little, Brown): An overabundance of the black-plumed bird is an ominous ecological sign as well as a window into the animal kingdom.

“Everything Matters!” by Ron Currie Jr. (Viking): In rural Maine, a young man struggles with his dysfunctional family, not to mention his prophetic powers, as the world braces for apocalypse.

“Exiles in the Garden” by Ward Just (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt): The son of a powerful U.S. senator faces the consequences of turning his back on Washington, D.C., society and living on its margins.

“Free: The Future of a Radical Price” by Chris Anderson (Hyperion): The author argues that businesses gain more benefits by giving away products than by charging for them.

“Get Real” by Donald E. Westlake (Grand Central Publishing): The late author’s final installment of the hilarious adventures of John Dortmunder and his felonious associates.

“Glover’s Mistake” by Nick Laird (Viking): A love triangle among artists plays out on the London art scene.

“Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963” by Kevin Starr (Oxford University Press): The author’s “Americans and the California Dream” series continues with a look at the state in the postwar years.

“I’m So Happy For You” by Lucinda Rosenfeld (Back Bay Books): When life blooms suddenly for unlucky Daphne, her best friend, Wendy, is torn between enthusiasm and crippling jealousy.

“Jericho’s Fall” by Stephen L. Carter (Alfred A. Knopf): A dying former CIA head possesses a secret that foreign powers want and an old flame may be able to uncover before he dies.

“A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition” by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner): The original manuscript version includes a number of unfinished Paris sketches removed before the book’s publication.

“Short Girls” by Bich Minh Nguyen (Viking): Two siblings find the realities of love as mysterious as their Vietnamese heritage and discover that the best support comes from each other.

“‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’: Jimmy Carter, America’s ‘Malaise,’ and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country” by Kevin Mattson (Bloomsbury USA): Inside the Carter White House.

“Where the Money Went: Stories” by Kevin Canty (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday): The author takes on varied themes — love, egotism, disillusionment — and renders them with a clear, sympathetic eye.

“The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana” by Rick Bass (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt): The author celebrates the distinctive qualities of each month of the year in his beloved Yaak Valley.