The hallmarks of a summer read are simple. The story must be entertaining and engrossing with captivating prose and characters you can invest in––a tale to get lost in on a beach or in the quiet of your backyard. Whether you’re embarking on classic literature, diving into something frothy and fun, or following a family saga that spans across time and space, these stories will provide a much-deserved break from to-do lists and activity-filled days.
And good news―reading fiction is a practice that’s actually good for you! When we read fiction, the occipital lobe of the brain is activated (the area responsible for processing visual information). Imagining the worlds and characters an author describes forces our brain to visualize it. This muscle at work sharpens our memory. We’ll take these benefits any day! So, with summer break zooming towards us, the time for uninterrupted reading is now.
Summertime reading has no rules—it should be for your sheer enjoyment!
Here are 9 books to take along to the park, beach, or the comfort of your favorite chair. (Scroll down for summaries!)
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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
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Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers
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The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa
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Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
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Redwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron
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Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
What our community is reading:
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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
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Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
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We Spread by Iain Reid
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Perfect if you gravitate towards classics and enjoy a little comedy with your romance. This Jane Austen novel is about two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, with different views on romance. One is sensible, one is wildly romantic. The sisters experience love, romance, and heartbreak: moving through all the highs and lows of womanhood. And if you finish still wanting to spend more time with the characters―there’s a 1995 movie adaptation starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant to enjoy!
“The technique of [Jane Austen’s novels] is beyond praise … Her mastery of the art she chose, or that chose her, is complete.” ―Elizabeth Bowen, Irish-British Novelist
Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers
This New York Times Bestseller is a rich, decades-spanning saga that follows fiery Marta Schneider. Determined to fulfill her mother’s hope, Marta leaves Switzerland and embarks on a journey that takes her through Europe and eventually to Canada, where she meets a handsome man. But nothing has prepared her for the sacrifices she must make for marriage and motherhood as she travels to the Canadian wilderness and then to the dusty Central Valley of California to raise her family. Marta’s hope is to give her children a better life, but experience has taught her that only the strong survive.
“Her Mother’s Hope has all the meaty elements of a blockbuster.” ―Denver Post
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa
Set in modern-day Japan, this poignant story centers around a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problem―ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. When an astute young housekeeper with a ten-year-old son is hired to care for the professor, unique bonds are formed through mathematics. It’s an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present. Dive into Yōko Ogawa’s world and find yourself looking at the world around you differently.
“Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, The Housekeeper and the Professor has the pared-down elegance of an equation.” ―O, The Oprah Magazine
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
Unsheltered examines human behavior through the lives of two families living in the same Vineland, New Jersey house over a century apart. In the 21st century, Willa Knox and her husband followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have nothing to show for it but debts and an inherited brick house that is falling apart. In another time, a husband and science teacher with a passion for honest investigation finds himself under siege; his employer forbids him to speak of the exciting work just published by Charles Darwin. His young bride and social-climbing mother-in-law bristle at the risk of scandal, and dismiss his worries that their elegant house is unsound.
“Unsheltered is also a sociopolitical novel tackling real-world issues, especially how we humans navigate profound changes that threaten to unmoor us.” —O, the Oprah Magazine
Redwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron
The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs to make sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.
“A triumph . . . Redwood Court is storytelling at its best: tender, vivid, and richly complicated.” —Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, retired school teacher Olive Kitteridge deplores the changes in her little town in Maine, and the world at large. But, she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
“Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You’ll never forget her.” —USA Today
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
A family’s search for their missing scientist father leads them on an adventure through space and time, aided by supernatural beings. A Wrinkle in Time is the story of the adventures of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school) in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem. This one is a childhood classic you’ll love to return to!
“An exhilarating experience.” ―Kirkus Reviews
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy always helped her cope, especially since her 18-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished over 30 years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine, but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night her son disappeared. Now, Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth before it’s too late.
“Remarkably Bright Creatures [is] an ultimately feel-good but deceptively sensitive debut … Memorable and tender.” —Washington Post
We Spread by Iain Reid
We Spread follows Penny, an artist who has lived in the same apartment for decades, surrounded by the artifacts and keepsakes of her long life. She is resigned to the mundane rituals of old age, until things start to slip. Before her longtime partner passed away years earlier, provisions were made for a room in a unique long-term care residence, where Penny finds herself after one too many “incidents.” Initially, surrounded by peers, conversing, eating, sleeping, looking out at the beautiful woods that surround the house, all is well. She even begins to paint again. But as the days start to blur together, Penny—with a growing sense of unrest and distrust—starts to lose her grip on the passage of time and on her place in the world. Is she succumbing to the subtly destructive effects of aging or is she an unknowing participant in something more unsettling?
“[An] exquisite novel of psychological suspense . . . [Leaves] readers contemplating their own mortality and primed to see the sinister behind the mundane . . . This deep plunge into fears about growing old and losing control is unforgettable.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
What will your next fiction find be? Send us your top picks and go-to reads for our next Book Club roundup!
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