The Best Book Club Books for Summer 2026

The official April 2026 pick for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, Into the Blue, is a spellbinding, decades-spanning love story that will make the perfect addition to any weekend trip. 

It’s the summer of 2000, and AJ Graves is stuck working in her small-town video rental store. All she thinks about is her dream of acting in New York—until the enchanting Noah Drew walks in, of the Drew acting dynasty. Soon enough, they spend all their time together, until one day Noah sets off, leaving AJ with no idea of his whereabouts.

Seven years later, AJ has found herself cast in a New York production—with none other than now Hollywood heartthrob Noah. Reading lines with one another, the same explosive chemistry fires between them, as they’re forced to confront what happened all those years ago. 

If you love second-chance romances and star-crossed destiny, this “intoxicating” epic is for you (Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times-bestselling author). 

The first book, in a sweeping, multi-generational saga, A Woman of Substance, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. 

Following Emma Harter, a poor Yorkshire maid, as she rises to become one of the most powerful retail magnates, this is the perfect story to follow along during the long summer days. Through two marriages, two wars, and a plethora of secrets, the matriarch, Emma, proves herself a force to reckon with.

What’s more, once you’re finished with the book, BritBox has made an eight-part adaptation that will begin streaming on June 24, 2026, starring Golden Globe winner and two-time Academy Award-nominated Brenda Blethyn in the title role. 

Although Homer’s poems are among the oldest works human civilization has, author Adam Nicolson “eloquently sums up what we still look for in Homer,” in a “sprawling, lyrical, and frequently intimate exploration” (Washington Post; Booklist).

A journey rather than a book, Why Homer Matters depicts how the poet occupied a “third space” in our relationship with the past, “bind[ing] the wounds that time inflicts.” His poems asked the important, ever-present questions surrounding the individual, love, and war, and more, ultimately illustrating how we are the way we are.

With Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated adaptation of The Odyssey set for release on July 17, 2026, there is no better time to consider why we keep returning to Homer’s epics.

In a pub in South East London, two young people meet. Connecting over their similar backgrounds—both Black British and having attended private schools on scholarships—they have struggled to feel they belong. Now, they are both artists—he a photographer, she a dancer.

Slowly, easily, they fall in love, certain it was always meant to be this way. But just as quickly as they came together, fear and violence threaten to tear them apart. Deeply atmospheric and poetic, Open Water captures the feelings of coming into being. 

As put by Yaa Gyasi, the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of Homegoing, “Open Water is [...] a love song to Black art and thought, an exploration of intimacy and vulnerability between two young artists learning to be soft with each other in a world that hardens against Black people.”

The most recent winner of the International Booker Prize, a literary award that honors global fiction, Taiwan Travelogue is a beautiful, heartbreaking love story between two women. 

A great pick for Pride Month and beyond, the story follows young novelist Aoyama Chizuko, who has been hired by the Japanese government ruling Taiwan in 1938. But Chizuko has no interest in any imperial agenda, and instead finds herself pulled to a Taiwanese woman. 

Chizuru serves as her interpreter and shows her the real island experience, with all its delectable culinary offerings. But Chizuru is keeping her distance, and Chizuko will soon find out why when devastation strikes. 

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, among other prizes, Small Rain is best characterized as an autobiographical novel, as it is deeply rooted in author Garth Greenwell’s own experiences.

Incredibly lyrical and intimate, a poet is brought to the hospital, and eventually the ICU, after experiencing sudden, debilitating pain. His life, once full of art, movement, writing, and music, is now spent in a bed, where he struggles to make sense of what he’s going through.

As he mediates on his past, all the memories that have brought him to where he is today, the book takes its true shape: “a story of ordinary love, ordinary happiness” (New Yorker). 

Lucy has grown used to life, the way that it is. Full of coffee, comic books, visits to Gus—the polar bear at the Central Park Zoo—and harboring a secret talent for drawing. After undergoing a brain injury at the age of three, she has difficulty relating to people, which makes it hard for her to hold a job.

But when she must move from her comfortable home to a studio apartment in New York City with her college-bound brother, she has to adapt to a new way of living, one that reveals she has far more strengths than she ever knew. 

A part from being set over summer, Piece of Mind, has all the characteristics of a perfect beach read: “an unforgettable character and an unforgettable story” (Ann Hood, New York Times-bestselling author). 

A delightful blend of historical fiction and magical realism, this National Book Award Finalist for Fiction begins on Black Sunday, with a dust storm sweeping across the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. 

But Uz is already spiraling, not just from the Great Depression, but from the nation’s violent histories. A story, at its core, of reckoning, The Antidote follows the lives of the town’s inhabitants, including a “Prairie Witch, a wheat farmer, a scarecrow, a New Deal photographer, and many more, who must fight to break the cycle. 

There’s nothing like “an existential thriller” that “builds with satisfying suspense” to enjoy on a sun-filled day (Kirkus Reviews; Publishers Weekly). One summer day, investigative reporter Andrew Stilman is running along the Hudson River when he feels a pressure in his lower back.

One second, he is covered in his own blood, and the next, it is exactly two months earlier. Andrew has sixty days to figure out who his murderer is—how much more suspenseful could it get than that?

Phoebe Stone has arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, in a floor-length green dress, without any luggage. She had decided, after years of waiting, to finally take the trip—even if it is without her husband, and at rock bottom. 

But what she didn’t factor in is the other guests at the Cornwall Inn, or rather, the wedding party. She is the only one not there for the big day, but she is quickly mistaken for one of the wedding people. 

The bride has done everything she can to make sure the day goes off without a hitch—but she couldn’t have anticipated Phoebe and her plan. Or the fact that the women can’t help but confide in one another. At times tragic, and at others hilarious, The Wedding People is “a feel-good testament to the life-altering magic of chance meetings” (People).

Originally published in 1968, Last Summer was called “the most chilling novel,” by Cosmopolitan and was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. If you’re in search of some summer scares, this “compelling and unforgettable” novel should definitely make the top of your list (Harper’s). 

Sandy, David, and Peter are three restless, privileged teenagers who meet during their families’ vacation on Greensward Island. Almost immediately, the boys become captivated by Sandy’s beauty and vow to do anything for her.

Far from adult supervision, the trio tests the bounds and pushes them further when they meet the shy, nerdy Rhoda. How far can Sandy push the boys? Would they take a life?