This is My Summer Reading List

Dear Reader,

(Please read the title of this post using Tommy Lee Jones’s voice when he says “This is my happy face.”)

This is my summer reading list.

Just kidding. I don’t have a summer reading list. I have books I might read during the summer. I have books I think I should read during the summer. There are a few books I can’t wait to read during the summer, but I don’t have a list, per se.

Word Raccoon’s book procuring style is this: walk down the new section of library books and just swipe them all into a basket.

Not completely accurate, but some weeks, close.

She also loves to sashay over to the nonfiction side and pick up more books than she will ever get to. She stops grabbing books when she can’t see over top of them and not before.

It is no accident that she lives with a library within sight.

WR has this fantasy: wouldn’t it be fascinating to read every book another person has read and see where your minds bend similarly and where they veer wildly apart? She seems to think that reading forms you as much as nurture. Let’s not even talk about nature, because she can’t articulate it, but Word Raccoon believes reading and nature are closely related.

Ask William Wordsworth. He can explain it.

She also hears about books and runs to the Libby app to request it, only to get it months later when she doesn’t even remember why she wanted to read it. (But we’ve talked about that before, haven’t we?)

Modern Mrs Darcy’s 2026 Minimalist Summer Reading Guide is out today, for those with less aversion than WR to having summer homework.

A couple of her suggestions that really stand out are Land by Maggie O’Farrell (She’s usually a must-read for me, though TBH, I did skip her last book. Wrong time.) and Ann Patchett’s new novel, Whistler. I have heard nothing but good things about this book, though I think I’m still happily mulling over Tom Lake. Whistler sounds like it promises the publishing world and art. I’m in. (I should put in a library request for it now. It comes out June 6.)

But back to Land for a moment. Apparently it is set in Ireland, with a dazzling amount of unusual POV’s: a house, a bird? (WR is asking if there’s a raccoon. I don’t know, but I doubt it.) This sounds delightfully strange, which I quite enjoy. It’s out June 2.

As for us, WR and I will probably just pick up whatever calls to us, whatever is suggested by those whose taste we trust. That’s a plan we can stick to.

May exciting books and jaunts find you this summer.

Drema