The Ultimate Summer 2021 Reading List

It’s June, the summer reading lists are out in full force, and so are our newly vaccinated knees (and chins), which can only mean that it’s that time of year again.

If you’re new, here’s how it works:

1. I read all of the Most Anticipated and Best Summer Reading lists that flood the internet this time of year.
2. I count how many times each book is included.
3. I collate them for you in this handy list.

This year, I read 38 lists, which recommended a grand total of 522 individual books. As always, I avoided narrowly themed or genre-specific lists (like “thrillers” or “business books” or “Hallmark novels”); when publications had multiple lists, I made sure to include them all. (The full list of lists is at the end of this post.) I have included those books recommended at least three times below, in descending order of frequency.

So if you want to Read the Book That Everyone is Reading (or at least recommending) this summer, here’s where you should start:

21 lists: