70 brilliant books for the summer

Published 13 June 2026 · india

Fiction Ben Lerner A middle-aged writer returns to his college town to record the final interview with his 90-year-old intellectual mentor. But he’s broken his

Fiction Ben Lerner A middle-aged writer returns to his college town to record the final interview with his 90-year-old intellectual mentor. But he’s broken his phone, and doesn’t seem able to confess that it’s not recording … this anxiety dream of a beginning leads us into a series of sharp insights into family, memory, inheritance and storytelling – all that it means to be human, and how smartphones are changing our sense of the world at every level. Fiction Maggie O’Farrell Following Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, O’Farrell’s latest historical novel has a personal connection. Inspired by an Irish ancestor who drew up maps for the English in the aftermath of the great famine, it builds into a multigenerational tale of folklore, migration and the meaning of home. Fiction Caro Claire Burke A social media influencer pushing a confected olden-days lifestyle of babies, baking and prairie dresses wakes up in the actual olden days – to dirt, poverty and domestic abuse. Critics have argued about a lack of political depth in this buzzy tradwife debut, but there’s no denying the power of the high-concept hook – or the furious energy of the voice. Fiction Douglas Stuart In the much-anticipated new novel from the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain author, young Cal returns from art school to his childhood home on the Hebridean island of Harris, and his fervently religious father, John. Both men are keeping secrets in a heartfelt and gorgeously wrought tapestry of faith, isolation, community and gay love. Fiction Gwendoline Riley Riley excels at dysfunctional family relationships, but is on gentler form here with the story of a long friendship between two prickly souls: Putnam, ageing out of relevance, and Laura, making her precarious way through midlife. It’s a wry take on the comforts of comradeship and the frustrations of other people, with the prose – as ever – sharp as a knife. Fiction Angela Tomaski An irresistible old-fashioned comfort read about the slow demise of an eccentric family trapped in a crumbling stately home, as seen through their possessions and mementoes when the house is sold off, ready to be turned into a hotel. Romantic misadventures, dastardly characters, lost boys and lashings of atmosphere: it’s all here. Fiction Imani Thompson Thompson’s buzzy debut follows Yrsa, a Black PhD student who embarks on a series of killings targeting men, each murder reminiscent of the violence more typically inflicted on women. A serial-killer thriller with a side of feminist theory, Thompson’s alchemical fusion of racial politics and “weird girl” fiction feels genuinely fresh. Fiction Melissa Albert A bestselling children’s author writes her own kids into her much-loved fantasy series – then dies in mysterious circumstances. As adults, Guin and Ennis must reconcile to confront their traumatic legacy. Set between an isolated house in the woods in 1990s Vermont and present-day New York, this slippery investigation into the price of creativity is a dark fairytale. Fiction Andrew Sean Greer A sunny holiday read about a young American falling for the delights of Italy when he takes a job as assistant to a 92-year-old aristocrat at the eponymous mansion in the Tuscan hills. Full of eccentric characters, it’s a love letter to friendship and discovery. Fiction Frances Crawford This slow-burn crime debut set in 1979 Glasgow begins when 12-year-old Janey, walking her dog Sid Vicious, comes across a body. Told in alternating chapters from Janey and her Nana, it’s a pitch-perfect depiction of time and place. Fiction Seamus O’Reilly A major new TV series about the Troubles is to be filmed in Derry – but its Hollywood star has gone missing. The first novel from the author of the tragicomic memoir Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? is a sparkling ensemble portrait of a city still dealing with its difficult past. Fiction Francis Spufford In a London on the brink of the second world war, an ambitious young woman working in the City stumbles into a magical realm of angels, time travel, possible worlds – and a fascist conspiracy to assassinate Winston Churchill and usher in a Nazi future for Britain. Packed with adventure and romance, this delightful fantasy has teeth – a very grown-up pleasure. Fiction Luke Kennard As part of a psychology experiment, a struggling actor agrees to appear in university lectures zipped into a large black leather bag with only his feet sticking out, and see how the students react. From this premise, Kennard spins a charming and comical discourse on the absurdity of modern life, riffing on everything from the perilous state of the arts to masculinity and the disappearing horizon of adulthood. Fiction Helen Bain A lyrical, impeccably researched reimagining of the final year in the marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, as seen by their friends and neighbours in the small Dartmoor town they escape to from London. With multiple narrators and a reverse chronology, it’s an ambitious and impressively achieved debut, and a luminous portrait of the effect literature’s most famous couple had on the people around them. Fiction Patmeena Sabit A family saga, a whodunnit and an investigation into assimilation in the US: this kaleidoscopic debut about the community response after an Afghan-American teenager is found drowned in a canal at the wheel of the family car keeps the reader guessing, with gossip, prejudice and contradictory accounts pulling in all directions. Fiction Francesca de Tores Alexander Selkirk, 18th-century privateer and the real-life inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, is marooned on an island in the South Pacific with only a Bible and a cask of booze for company. What follows is a fantastically fresh, gripping adventure story and psychological journey combined, as over the years he develops his survival skills and faces up to his isolation.