Welcome, dear readers, to our second annual Summer Reading Bucket List! As the weather gets balmier, we’ve been eagerly assembling our to-read piles and dreaming of gently swaying hammocks and sand-crusted beach chairs, a cool beverage at hand and uninterrupted hours stretching ahead with nothing to do but soak up the sunshine and get lost in some great books.
Now, the time is here. Over the next three months, we invite you to read along with us. We’ve put together a list of 10 literary to-dos: Can you get through at least five before summer ends?
Track your progress using our checklist. When you’re ready, you can submit your list using the form at the bottom of this story — and be entered into this year’s prize drawing! We may not be able to throw all of you a pizza party, but we will be selecting 10 readers to receive some goodies personally curated for you by our editors. All the details are in the form.
1. Read a book published in the last year
I’m partial to a stream-of-consciousness novel, which makes my choice of book published in the last year easy: “Angel Down,” by Daniel Kraus, one of our 10 Best Books of 2025. In the past few weeks, since the novel won the Pulitzer Prize, I’ve heard from readers delightfully surprised by their love of the book, and from some who were grossed out or underwhelmed. I’m excited to dive in and form my own opinion. — Emma Lumeij, audience editor
I’m fascinated by Harriet Clark’s new novel, “The Hill.” Suzanna, 8, shuttles between the hilltop prison where her mother is incarcerated and the New York City apartment where she lives with her grandmother, a former Communist. Clark draws on her own life experience — her mother was a member of the Weather Underground and imprisoned throughout Clark’s childhood — and the novel sounds like a coming of age that completely refashions the genre. — Joumana Khatib, newsletter writer and editor
2. Read a book in a genre you don’t typically read
I don’t read a lot of psychological thrillers, or a lot of science fiction, but the buzz around Caro Claire Burke’s trippy, time-traveling, tradwife debut novel “Yesteryear” has been inescapable, and convinced me to put it at the top of my summer to-read list! — Jennifer Harlan, service editor
3. Read one of The New York Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century
I squandered some of my young adulthood avoiding the works of Ben Lerner, mostly out of the petulant cynicism that rafts of critical praise in the “voice-of-a-generation” mode tends to provoke in me — especially when the term “autofiction” is liberally employed. As it turns out, it really was churlish of me! I wolfed down his latest novel, “Transcription,” in two hours during an otherwise woefully sleepless Saturday night and have been thinking about it quite a bit since. I admit defeat. It’s time to give “10:04” a go. — John Maher, news editor
4. Read a really short, or a really long, book
I spent the first day of 2026 reading Richard Siken’s poetry collection “I Do Know Some Things” and was blown away by his intimate account of learning to write again after a stroke. It inspired me to pick up his first book, the cult classic “Crush,” which contains far fewer medical emergencies and, at just 80 pages, seems like an ideal companion for a heady summer evening. — Jennifer Harlan, service editor
For me, summer reading is often catch-up reading — time to at last explore that classic I’ve been meaning to read, to dive into that chunky novel that’s been daunting me, etc. This summer, I’ve set my sights on “The Last Samurai,” Helen DeWitt’s 500-page masterpiece about a single mother and her genius son (which came in at 29 on our Best of the 21st Century list). It’s long, it’s ambitious, it’s lauded — checks all my boxes for a summer project! — MJ Franklin, review editor and host of the Book Review Book Club
5. Read a classic you’ve been meaning to read (or revisit)
A forthcoming biography of Anita Brookner (due this fall) has inspired me to go back and read as many of the British novelist’s books as I can, beginning with her 1981 debut, called … “The Debut” (“A Start in Life” in England), about a wry and lonely 40-year-old Balzac scholar who reconstructs her coming-of-age in upper-middle-class London in an effort to determine how she ended up living such a “solemn life.” Like most of Brookner’s books, this one is beguiling, quietly funny and slim enough to finish in a weekend, if not a single sitting. — Lauren Christensen, review editor
It’s going to be an “Anna Karenina” summer for me. The Russian greats are a blind spot of mine — I only read Turgenev for the first time this year, after finishing Daniyal Mueenuddin’s “This Is Where the Serpent Lives” — and my friend has been tantalizing me with screenshots from her own recent dive into Tolstoy. I can’t wait to get started. — Joumana Khatib, newsletter writer and editor
6. Read a book that takes place during the summer
Last year in this category, I read Catherine Newman’s novel “Sandwich,” about a woman contending with various midlife travails on her family’s annual beach vacation — so this year, I figured I’d tackle a similar story from the husband’s point of view. Richard Russo’s 2009 novel “That Old Cape Magic” seems sure to deliver another wistful, loose-limbed look at marriage in middle age against the backdrop of summer at the beach. — Gregory Cowles, senior editor
7. Read a book in translation
BookTok made the Belgian novelist and Holocaust survivor Jacqueline Harpman a posthumous sensation for “I Who Have Never Known Men,” her startling portrait of a group of women living in captivity. Now comes “We Were Forbidden” — three novellas, newly translated by Ros Schwartz and packaged as a single book, that promise more dystopian literary surrealism from a master who’s belatedly getting her due. Count me in! — Emily Eakin, senior editor
8. Read a book that’s been adapted for the screen
I have discovered some really good books — and some very odd ones — by working backward from movies I like. Hitchcock, in particular, adapted fun source material: Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train” and Boileau-Narcejac’s “Vertigo” are certainly worth reading on their own terms. As to Winston Graham’s 1961 thriller “Marnie,” the basis for one of the Master of Suspense’s most bizarre, problematic and unsuccessful films? Ask me in a few months! — Sadie Stein, review editor
9. Listen to an audiobook
To hear Toni Morrison read her profound, incantatory 1970 debut, “The Bluest Eye,” recorded 41 years later, is to feel like you are this much closer to understanding the outer limits of language. Is that something to do specifically in summer? Why not! — Lauren Christensen, review editor
I’ll never know what Homer’s “Odyssey” sounded like when it was recited by rhapsodists on the streets of Athens millenniums ago; even if I could somehow hop through time, it would all be (ancient) Greek to me! But Claire Danes narrates the audiobook of Emily Wilson’s recent translation, and Ian McKellen reads the classic Robert Fagles version. Either sounds like a treat. — John Maher, news editor
Audiobooks are a boon for families on summer road trips — especially if anyone is prone to car sickness while reading! I’m particularly partial to Stockard Channing’s completely wonderful reading of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books. — Sadie Stein, review editor
10. Check out and read a book from your local library (bonus points if it’s recommended by a librarian!)
My mother is a retired librarian, so technically I suppose I could have just asked her what she’s liked lately and called it a day. But that wouldn’t have seemed sporting, and anyway I’m always happy for an excuse to drop into my terrific local library, where at least a couple of the librarians are also close neighbors of mine. One of them pointed me to a suspense writer I’d never read before, Freida McFadden, who has a new psychological thriller called “Dear Debbie.” That one went onto my pile along with a horror novel, “The Eyes Are the Best Part,” by another new-to-me writer named Monika Kim, which came recommended by a second librarian at the front desk. “I hope you’re OK with body horror?” she asked. No time like the summer to find out. — Gregory Cowles, senior editor
