It’s (un)officially summer, which means the living is easy, days and legs are stretching out languorously, and you’ve got sunshine hours to burn by the pool. (Unless, of course, you’re a parent.) But which books should fill your beach bag/backyard/pool house library this year? The internet, as always, has an answer.
So , I have endeavored to find it. If you’re new here, here’s how it works: 1. I read all of the Most Anticipated Books of Summer and Best Summer Reading lists that flood the internet this time of year (or at least as many as I can find).
2. I count how many times each individual book is mentioned. 3.
I collate that information for you in this handy list. There are noticeably fewer summer reading lists floating around this year. It’s possible some outlets are waiting later to run their summer reading lists, but it may also be a function of the state of online media (crumbling), or the fall of the list (imaginary), or something-something AI (possible, very very possible).
But I still managed to read 23 lists, which recommended a grand total of 456 books. 59 of those books were mentioned at least 3 times, and these I have collated in descending order of popularity below. Lev Grossman, (July) Taffy Brodesser-Akner, (July) Julia Phillips, (June) Liz Moore, (July) Rufi Thorpe, (June) Rachel Cusk, (June) Questlove, with Ben Greenman, (June) Laura van den Berg, (July) Emily Nussbaum, (June) Yasmin Zaher, (July) Kaliane Bradley, (May) Kevin Kwan, (May) Claire .
