It’s been an uneasy start to summer. Ticks are legion. The weather is unpredictable. The Iran war drags ludicrously on. Inflation is rising faster than ever. SpaceX, Anthropic, and Open A.I. are about to go public, which will cause . . . something. The most corrupt possible (don’t quote me though) version of the World Cup is underway. Screwworm is among us.<\/p>\n
But tradition is tradition<\/a>, and so in an effort to find out which books everyone is reading and recommending this season, I read through 25 summer reading lists, which recommended a total of 419 individual books. 60 books were mentioned 3 or more times, and these I have organized for you below, in descending order of popularity.<\/p>\n I must note that the summer book lists are relatively thin on the ground (or possibly just late) this year. At this time in 2025, I counted 540 individual books from 35 summer reading lists; 85 of those appeared on at least 3; the most recommended book was on 19 lists. (To be fair, 2024 looked a lot like this year, but I thought we’d bounced back!) Some notable big lists from trusted publications are missing (or again, late), and the algorithm keeps sending me to random Substacks. The internet as we knew it continues to implode, but we soldier on, counting.<\/p>\n NB:<\/em> Please see the end of the post for the lists counted here; if I’ve missed any, or they’ve cropped up since filing, I remind you, again, that time is both linear and finite.<\/p>\n Maggie O’Farrell, Land<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Ann Patchett, Whistler<\/em><\/a> Jenny Jackson, The Shampoo Effect<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Liane Moriarty, Big Little Truths<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Melissa Albert, The Children<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Pamela Colloff, Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast<\/a><\/em> Chris Bohjalian, The Amateur<\/a><\/em> Carlos Barrag\u00e1n, The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers<\/a><\/em> John Manuel Arias, Crocodilopolis<\/a><\/em> Kirkus’<\/em> 40 Hottest Reads for Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Publishers Weekly’<\/em>s Summer Reads 2026<\/a> \u2022 Boston Globe’<\/em>s 75 books to keep you reading all season long<\/a> \u2022 The New York Times’<\/em> The Novels Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer<\/a> and The Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer<\/a> \u2022 The Los Angeles Times’<\/em> The 12 best summer books to sink your teeth into<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Oprah Daily’s The 24 Best Books of Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Cultured’<\/em>s 14 Books Our Editors Can\u2019t Wait to Read This Summer<\/a> \u2022 NPR’s 15 books our critics can’t wait for this summer<\/a> \u2022 Harper’s Bazaar’<\/em>s The Bazaar<\/em> Guide to Summer 2026 Books<\/a> \u2022 WWD’s Notable New Books to Add to Your Summer 2026 Reading List<\/a> \u2022 W’<\/em>s 16 Must-Read Books for Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Good Housekeeping’<\/em>s The Books Everyone Will Be Talking About This Summer, According to a Books Editor<\/a> \u2022 USA Today’<\/em>s 15 of the most anticipated books you should read this summer<\/a> \u2022 People’<\/em>s Must-Read Books for Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Town & Country’<\/em>s The 46 Must-Read Books of Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Five Books’ Must-Read Novels of Summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Page Six’<\/em>s editors share their best beach reads for summer 2026<\/a> \u2022 Southern Living’<\/em>s 20 New Books We Can’t Wait To Read This Summer<\/a> \u2022 The Spokesman-Review’<\/em>s Dive into these 13 new books for summer<\/a> \u2022 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’<\/em>s 38 new books for summer reading in 2026<\/a> \u2022\u00a0Goodreads’ Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of Summer\u2026and the Rest of the Year!<\/a> (June-August pub dates) \u2022 Chicago Tribune’<\/em>s\u00a0Our 50 coolest books for your hottest months<\/a> \u2022 The Minnesota Star Tribune’<\/em>s Summer Books<\/a> \u2022 and of course, Lit Hub’s 19 Novels You Need to Read This Summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been an uneasy start to summer. Ticks are legion. The weather is unpredictable. The Iran war drags ludicrously on. Inflation is rising faster than ever. SpaceX, Anthropic, and Open A.I. are about to go public, which will cause .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1210,"featured_media":272871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,43070,43135],"tags":[15974,41602,79221,79220],"class_list":["post-272376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fullwidth-slider","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","tag-summer-reading","tag-ultimate-reading-list","tag-ultimate-summer-reading","tag-ultimate-summer-reading-list","story-type-reading-list"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/summer-reading-2026-copy.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-18Ra","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}13 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
12 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nColson Whitehead, Cool Machine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n10 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
8 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
7 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
6 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nBen Fountain, Rasputin Swims the Potomac<\/a><\/em>
\nAndrew Sean Greer, Villa Coco<\/a><\/em>
\nDaniel Mason, Country People<\/a><\/em>
\nT\u00e9a Obreht, Sunrise<\/a><\/em>
\nShannon Sanders, The Great Wherever<\/a><\/em>
\nTia Williams, The Missed Connection<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n5 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nLisa Jewell, It Could Have Been Her<\/a><\/em>
\nDavid Sedaris, The Land and Its People<\/a><\/em>
\nValeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End<\/a><\/em>
\nCourtney Maum, Alan Opts Out<\/a><\/em>
\nPaul Yoon, Etna<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n4 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nJulie Buntin, Famous Men<\/a><\/em>
\nCaro Claire Burke, Yesteryear<\/a><\/em>
\nMary H.K. Choi, Pool House<\/a><\/em>
\nEdwidge Danticat, D\u00e8y<\/a><\/em>
\nJennifer Hiller, Heart of Glass<\/a><\/em>
\nChang-rae Lee, A Tender Age<\/a><\/em>
\nSigrid Nunez, It Will Come Back to You<\/a><\/em>
\nRichard Russo, Under the Falls<\/a><\/em>
\nKennedy Ryan, Score<\/a><\/em>
\nEdward Schmit, The Open Era<\/a><\/em>
\nElizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say<\/a><\/em>
\nDouglas Stuart, John of John<\/a><\/em>
\nClaire Vaye Watkins, Yellow Pine<\/a><\/em>
\nTeddy Wayne, The Au Pair<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n3 lists:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nEve Babitz, Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were)<\/a><\/em>
\nYu-Mei Balasingamchow, Names Have Been Changed<\/a><\/em>
\nAmy Bloom, Blunt Instrument<\/a><\/em>
\nChanel Cleeton, An Infinite Love Story<\/a><\/em>
\nLauren Collins, They Stole a City: Wilmington’s White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy<\/a><\/em>
\nNaima Coster, Take What You Can<\/a><\/em>
\nMichael Cunningham, Unsayable: A Life in Writing<\/a><\/em>
\nEric Jay Dolin, The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail<\/a><\/em>
\nIsaac Fitzgerald, American Rambler<\/a><\/em>
\nIsabel J. Kim, Sublimation<\/a><\/em>
\nJessica Knoll, Helpless<\/a><\/em>
\nJean Kwok, Dominion<\/a><\/em>
\nRobinne Lee, Crash Into Me<\/a><\/em>
\nRobert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris, The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss<\/a><\/em>
\nKimberly McCreight, Someone Else’s Husband<\/a><\/em>
\nAnnabel Monaghan, Dolly All the Time<\/a><\/em>
\nSilvia Moreno-Garcia, The Intrigue<\/a><\/em>
\nSimon Pare-Poupart, Trash!: A Garbageman’s Story<\/a><\/em>
\nKathleen Rooney, Man Overboard!<\/a><\/em>
\nAllie Rowbottom, Lovers XXX<\/a><\/em>
\nJohn Searles, Single Girls<\/a><\/em>
\nRebecca Wright Stevens, Sisters of the Midnight Sun: A Murder in Arctic Alaska<\/a><\/em>
\nPaul Tremblay, Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep<\/a><\/em>
\nBarry Walters, Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000<\/a><\/em>
\nJesmyn Ward, On Witness and Respair: Essays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nList of lists surveyed:<\/strong><\/h4>\n