Sign in with Facebook
Authors Offer Their Best Summer Reading Recommendations
If you want a great book recommendation (or three), here at Goodreads we have a tip for you: Ask an author! Not only are authors very voracious bookworms, they also tend to read the latest and greatest releases and are always happy to boost a book they love.
So, as we head into our favorite season—which is Summer Reading, of course—we asked some very well-known authors to suggest a few books for their readers to discover.
Below you'll find picks from beloved authors, including Jennifer Weiner, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Helen Hoang, Mark Sullivan, and more! Be sure to add any recommendations that catch your eye to your Want to Read shelf.
"The novels I love range from mysteries and thrillers to domestic dramas to literary fiction. What they have in common are the elements I try to include in my own books: well-drawn characters, page-turning plots, and stories that explore questions of relationships, whether between spouses, siblings, parents and children, or even writers and the truth. These three books check all the boxes. They'll keep you entertained, unsettle and provoke you in the best ways, and make you think about your place in the world and what we owe the people we love," says Weiner, whose earlier books include Good in Bed and Big Summer.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"As the official ambassador for the annual Summer Scares program, which promotes horror titles, it is my duty to talk horror. Here are three titles that will chill you during the sweltering days, plus take you on a brief tour of horror through time," Moreno-Garica says.
"The Elementals is a magnificent haunted house story without the traditional ghosts peeking through walls. Originally published in 1981, during the heyday of horror, it remains a unique and gripping read. The Cipher, published in 1991 and recently released in a new edition, marks the swan song of the horror boom. It has an odd premise, but it's riveting: A group of young people find a hole in their building that seems to lead to another dimension. After years of a horror lull by the big presses, we've had a bit of a horror explosion recently, and The Only Good Indians feels a bit classic and also absolutely fresh as it dangles a unique baddie stalking a circle of friends," says the author of Mexican Gothic.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
"The Elementals is a magnificent haunted house story without the traditional ghosts peeking through walls. Originally published in 1981, during the heyday of horror, it remains a unique and gripping read. The Cipher, published in 1991 and recently released in a new edition, marks the swan song of the horror boom. It has an odd premise, but it's riveting: A group of young people find a hole in their building that seems to lead to another dimension. After years of a horror lull by the big presses, we've had a bit of a horror explosion recently, and The Only Good Indians feels a bit classic and also absolutely fresh as it dangles a unique baddie stalking a circle of friends," says the author of Mexican Gothic.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"Every summer, I find myself wanting to read books that I know will be knockouts. With new ones from my favorites, Casey McQuiston and Helen Hoang, plus the debut from Zakiya Dalila Harris that everyone's talking about, these are sure things," says Reid, the author of Daisy Jones & the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"Bird by Bird is a book that is intended to be a guide to writing but which is also a guide to life. I love Anne Lamott so much. She writes like no one else, and this is probably her greatest work.
How to Be Animal is my nonfiction book of the year, and I am telling everyone to read it. A real perspective-shifting book, about how our ability as a species to forget we are animals causes all kinds of trouble. It’s phenomenal.
When I think of the ultimate summer read, I always think of Bonjour Tristesse. Maybe because it is set in summer on the French Riviera, and maybe because I first read it one summer while being the same age as the author when she wrote it (she was a mere 18 years old). One of those books that you shouldn’t read if you insist on liking the main characters, but one of my all-time classic reads," says Haig, whose books include Notes on a Nervous Planet and Reasons to Stay Alive.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
How to Be Animal is my nonfiction book of the year, and I am telling everyone to read it. A real perspective-shifting book, about how our ability as a species to forget we are animals causes all kinds of trouble. It’s phenomenal.
When I think of the ultimate summer read, I always think of Bonjour Tristesse. Maybe because it is set in summer on the French Riviera, and maybe because I first read it one summer while being the same age as the author when she wrote it (she was a mere 18 years old). One of those books that you shouldn’t read if you insist on liking the main characters, but one of my all-time classic reads," says Haig, whose books include Notes on a Nervous Planet and Reasons to Stay Alive.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"This has been a year of unfathomable loss in the world at large, and in the literary community, too. Three of my favorite writers died during the pandemic, and their deaths left with me a peculiar sense of grief, as if I’d lost some close friends I’d never actually met. The only consolation has been to pick up their books and feel their presence on the page, to hear their distinctive voices, and commune with their unforgettable characters. Larry McMurtry, Beverly Cleary, and John le Carré don’t have very much in common, except that they’re all wonderful writers who left us with some immortal works to keep us company in their absence. Here are three of my favorites, books that deserve to be remembered and celebrated for many summers to come," says Perrotta, whose books also include The Leftovers and Little Children.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"Every summer I look forward to pulling one of those still-unread, mammoth works from my shelves, eager to experience again the life-transforming absorption so many of the great classics have elicited in me. The ambition to contain an entirety—of a society, a human life, the world itself—is such an extraordinary ambition, and when it’s even partly fulfilled in book form, I just don't think there's anything to compare. These are some of my great reads from past summers," says Akhtar.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"I think a lot about voice in my own writing, and these two novels and a story collection range widely in voice—they are absurd, comedic, tragic, assured. There are healing powers, revival meetings, and ghosts in heels. Doughnut shops and tech bros. They feel like summer—a tourist town, summer trips through Southern towns, languid lounging in the back of a pickup truck. And they are all rooted in family and identity, characters who split and fracture, who try and sometimes fail to save each other, to really see each other. I hope you'll find all of these new voices as beautiful and challenging and refreshing as I did, and that they'll keep you company on brighter days ahead," says Garcia.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"I read an early copy of Lemmie’s impressive debut, Fifty Words for Rain, more than two years ago and am still haunted by her story of a mixed-race girl growing up in a Japanese organized-crime family.
First Principals could have been a snoozer, but through Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks’ lucid writing, it becomes part detective story and part revelation about the forces that influenced the founding of our nation. I was utterly fascinated and could not put this book down.
Yes, the 29-year-old author Connor Sullivan is my son. Dad pride aside, his first novel, Sleeping Bear, is a stunner based on the fact that every year more than 2,000 people vanish without a trace in Alaska. Robert Crais, Tess Gerritsen, and James Patterson agree that this is one of the best debut thrillers they’ve read in years. I think so, too," says the author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
First Principals could have been a snoozer, but through Pulitzer Prize winner Ricks’ lucid writing, it becomes part detective story and part revelation about the forces that influenced the founding of our nation. I was utterly fascinated and could not put this book down.
Yes, the 29-year-old author Connor Sullivan is my son. Dad pride aside, his first novel, Sleeping Bear, is a stunner based on the fact that every year more than 2,000 people vanish without a trace in Alaska. Robert Crais, Tess Gerritsen, and James Patterson agree that this is one of the best debut thrillers they’ve read in years. I think so, too," says the author of Beneath a Scarlet Sky.
Here are his summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"Talia Hibbert, Rebekah Weatherspoon, and Chloe Liese all hit the rom-com sweet spot for me. They write the kind of characters who could be your best friends, there's great humor, and oh la la, the steam. [Fans herself.] Perfect for the beach or the pool or inside with the air-conditioning," says Hoang, whose earlier books include The Kiss Quotient and The Bride Test.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
"Is there any more perfect summer read than a romance novel? One that tempts you to while away the hours, curling your toes in warm sand? Here are three romances I love from three of my very favorite authors, out just in time to fill your lazy days and heat up your summer nights," says the author of The Rules for Scoundrels and Bareknuckle Bastards series.
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
Here are her summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon
Authors of Blackout
Authors of Blackout
"In Rise to the Sun, Olivia wears her heart on her sleeve, and Toni keeps all her feelings close to her chest. They meet at a music festival and join forces to hopefully win the fest’s scavenger hunt (and the prize money). They each want something different at the start of the story but end up wanting each other. They’re the messy queer Black girls we’ve always wanted to see given a love story with a happy, heart-squelching ending.
In Wings of Ebony, Rue is no stranger to making the best of a not-great situation, but this mission get amplified a hundred-fold when her mother is killed, and Rue is snatched away from her little sister by a father she’s never known…who, as it turns out, is a god. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it?), as the only half-human/half-god, Rue finds herself facing down an evil plaguing both sides of her heritage. And like...dealing with boys and stuff, too. This book is the literal Black Girl Magic we all need.
And we obviously can’t leave out the queen of YA romance’s latest offering, Instructions for Dancing. (Shameless plug here, and Nicki wasn’t involved.) Evie has a strange—and low-key awful—ability: She can see how people’s love stories are going to end. So of course she has sworn off love…which is precisely when she meets a boy who is her polar opposite and really hard not to fall for. In a crazy world like the one we’re in now, this book reminds us of what’s possible when we allow our hearts to open," say the authors of Blackout, whose individual books include hits like The Hate U Give, Grown, and The Sun Is Also a Star.
Here are their summer reading recommendations:
In Wings of Ebony, Rue is no stranger to making the best of a not-great situation, but this mission get amplified a hundred-fold when her mother is killed, and Rue is snatched away from her little sister by a father she’s never known…who, as it turns out, is a god. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it?), as the only half-human/half-god, Rue finds herself facing down an evil plaguing both sides of her heritage. And like...dealing with boys and stuff, too. This book is the literal Black Girl Magic we all need.
And we obviously can’t leave out the queen of YA romance’s latest offering, Instructions for Dancing. (Shameless plug here, and Nicki wasn’t involved.) Evie has a strange—and low-key awful—ability: She can see how people’s love stories are going to end. So of course she has sworn off love…which is precisely when she meets a boy who is her polar opposite and really hard not to fall for. In a crazy world like the one we’re in now, this book reminds us of what’s possible when we allow our hearts to open," say the authors of Blackout, whose individual books include hits like The Hate U Give, Grown, and The Sun Is Also a Star.
Here are their summer reading recommendations:
|
|
|
Which of these authors' picks most intrigues you, and why? Let us know in the comments!
Comments Showing 1-11 of 11 (11 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Felinish
(new)
May 19, 2021 06:00PM
Middlemarch & Lonesome Dove intrigue me most. I know mammoth books and perhaps not beach reads but I’ve wanted to read both for so long. Soon come.
reply
|
flag
I love that Helen Hoang loves Chloe Liese!! I recently discovered the Bergman Brothers series and I am obsessed!
I loved these recommendations, gimme more!
Felinish wrote: "Middlemarch & Lonesome Dove intrigue me most. I know mammoth books and perhaps not beach reads but I’ve wanted to read both for so long. Soon come."I remember Lonesome Dove as being really good. Not sure how it's aged, but it's probably still very interesting.
Mostly ho-hum (or worse) recommendations, with the exception of all of Ayad Akhtar's recommendations plus Bird by Bird and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
The two authors whose recommendations I’m most inclined to take are Matt Haig(I read Midnight Library) and Tom Perrotta; Mark Sullivan
and Ayad Akhmatova though I’ll skip Middlemarch, having recently attempted it.
I'd add the thriller, "I don't forgive you" by Aggie Blum Thompson. A stolen identity. The TV rights have already been sold!
Linda wrote: "Mostly ho-hum (or worse) recommendations, with the exception of all of Ayad Akhtar's recommendations plus Bird by Bird and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."In your opinion. Personally I'd rather read literally anything on this list, even the books that don't appeal to me, before even looking at Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the most aggressively boring book I've ever had the misfortune to read! It's fair to say there's something for everyone here. (Sorry, I was forced to read TTSS for book club earlier this year and I'm still sore about it!)
Finally some recommendations that aren't all products of the marketing machine! I loved seeing a mix of new releases as well as tried and true favorites. Let's see more lists like this!!!!
