The Ultimate Summer 2025 Reading List

It’s yet starting to consciousness for illustration summertime connected nan East Coast. To wit: nan forearms are out, and truthful are nan reference lists. To find retired which books everyone is reference and recommending this play (as is my wont), I publication 35 summertime reference lists from 31 publications, counted up each nan books, and tallied them together for you here.

This year, those 35 lists (which are themselves listed astatine nan bottommost of this post), recommended a full of 540 individual books. 85 of those appeared connected astatine slightest 3 lists; those 85 are now presented to you successful descending bid of popularity. Well, it really speaks for itself, starting pinch nan winner-by-a-mile:

19 lists:

Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere

15 lists:

S.A. Cosby, King of Ashes

14 lists:

Melissa Febos, The Dry Season
R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

13 lists:

Susan Choi, Flashlight
V.E. Schwab, Bury Our Bones successful nan Midnight Soil

10 lists:

Rob Franklin, Great Black Hope

9 lists:

Sophie Elmhirst, A Marriage astatine Sea
Caroline Fraser, Murderland
Molly Jong-Fast, How to Lose Your Mother
Catherine Lacey, The Möbius Book
Jess Walter, So Far Gone

8 lists:

Megan Giddings, Meet Me astatine nan Crossroads
Aisling Rawle, The Compound
Gary Shteyngart, Vera, aliases Faith

7 lists:

Claire Lynch, A Family Matter
Jason Mott, People Like Us
Leila Mottley, The Girls Who Grew Big
Riley Sager, With a Vengeance
Katie Yee, Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar

6 lists:

Nicholas Boggs, Baldwin: A Love Story
Hal Ebbott, Among Friends
Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow
Lisa Jewell, Don’t Let Him In
Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding
Lucas Schaefer, The Slip
Maggie Stiefvater, The Listeners

5 lists:

Megan Abbott, El Dorado Drive
Kashana Cauley, The Payback
Michael Clune, Pan
Yrsa Daley-Ward, The Catch
Jonas Hassen Khemiri, The Sisters
Maris Kreizman, I Want to Burn This Place Down
Sarah MacLean, These Summer Storms
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Bewitching
Adriana Trigiani, The View from Lake Como
Jeff Weiss, Waiting for Britney Spears

4 lists:

Emily Adrian, Seduction Theory
Bill Clinton and James Patterson, The First Gentleman
Marlen Haushofer, Killing Stella
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Misbehaving astatine nan Crossroads
Laura Lippman, Murder Takes a Vacation
Mattie Lubchansky, Simplicity
Benedict Nguyen, Hot Girls With Balls
Chris Pavone, The Doorman
Ivy Pochoda, Ecstasy
Loretta Rothschild, Finding Grace
Louis Sachar, The Magician of Tiger Castle
Miriam Toews, A Truce That Is Not Peace
Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness
Ruth Ware, The Woman successful Suite 11

3 lists:

Fredrik Backman, My Friends
Regina Black, August Lane
Amy Bloom, I’ll Be Right Here
Janelle Brown, What Kind of Paradise
Peter Ames Carlin, Tonight successful Jungleland
Ron Chernow, Mark Twain
Nicola Dinan, Disappoint Me
Matthew Gvin Frank, Submersed
Grace Flahive, Palm Meridian
James Frey, Next to Heaven
Carley Fortune, One Golden Summer
Jayson Greene, UnWorld
Jonathan Gould, Burning Down nan House
Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life
Holly Jackson, Not Quite Dead Yet
Stephen King, Never Flinch
Rax King, Sloppy
Michael Koresky, Sick and Dirty
Thomas Mallon, The Very Heart of It
Sangu Mandanna, A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping
Keith McNally, I Regret Almost Everything
Annabel Monaghan, It’s a Love Story
Aisha Muharrar, Loved One
Joyce Carol Oates, Fox
Helen Oyeyemi, A New New Me
Daniel Saldaña Paris, tr. Christina MacSweeney, The Dance and nan Fire
Todd S. Purdum, Desi Arnaz
Karin Slaughter, We Are All Guilty Here
Brendan Slocumb, The Dark Maestro
Mia Sosa, When Javi Dumped Mari
Edward St. Aubyn, Parallel Lines
Katie Sturino, Sunny Side Up
Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley
Kevin Wilson, Run for nan Hills

*

List of lists surveyed:

USA Today’s 15 books you should publication this summer • Goodreads Readers’ 80 Most Anticipated New Summer Books • Kirkus Reviews’ 21 Hottest Books of Summer 2025 • Publishers Weekly’s Summer Reads 2025 • The Los Angeles Times’ 30 must-read books for summer • Vulture’s 28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer • Harper’s Bazaar’s The 21 Best Beach Reads to Keep You Occupied All Summer Long • The New York Times’ 31 Novels Coming This Summer and 21 Nonfiction Books Coming This Summer and The Summer’s Best Beach Reads • TIME’s The 16 Most Anticipated Books of nan Summer • The Washington Post’s 30 books to publication this summer • The Wall Street Journal’s Summer Books: The Best Reading for nan Season • Our Culture’s Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2025 • Town & Country’s The 46 Must-Read Books of Summer 2025 • The A.V. Club’s most anticipated books of summertime 2025 • The Boston Globe’s 75 caller books to adhd to your summertime reference list • The Atlantic’s Summer Reading Guide • NPR’s 17 caller books our critics can’t hold to publication this summer • The New York Post’s The 30 champion formation sounds for summertime 2025 • Page Six’s editors stock their champion formation sounds for summertime 2025 • Oprah Daily’s The 26 Best Summer Reads of 2025 • Iowa Public Radio’s 2025 summertime book guideline for grown-ups • PEOPLE’s Best Nonfiction Books of Summer 2025 and Most-Anticipated Summer Books 2025 • Southern Living’s 25 New Beach Reads For 2025 • Tertulia’s Best New Fiction Books Coming Summer 2025 and Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of nan Summer • Esquire’s The Best Books of Summer 2025 • Bustle’s The Most Anticipated Books Of Summer 2025 • BookBub’s The Best Books of Summer • AARP’s 35 Summer Books to Add to Your 2025 Reading List • St. Louis Public Radio’s The champion summertime books of 2025, according to St Louis librarians • Garden & Gun’s The Great Big Summer Reading List • and of course, Lit Hub’s 22 Novels You Need to Read This Summer.