Whether you made it to a beach this year or staycationed at home we’ve got the perfect selection of options for your summer reading. Fiction, non-fiction, highbrow, lowbrow, we’ve got it all covered. Plus we asked a few friends of the show to join in, so expect recommendations from Emily Rhodes of Emily’s Walking Book Club, journalist and regular show guest Phil Chaffee, Simon Thomas from podcast Tea or Books, and Elizabeth Morris of our favourite books newsletter Crib Notes.
Summer reading recommendations
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
- Sea of Poppies by Amitav Gosh
- Highland Fling by Nancy Mitford
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
- Business As Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford
- The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan
- The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
- Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo
Other books mentioned
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala
- The Meaning of Rice by Michael Booth
- Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Love in a Cold Climate, The Pursuit of Love and Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
- In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh
- Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
- H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Notes
Find out more about Emily’s Walking Book Club, including how to join. We’d also encourage you to watch Emily sing the praises of Middlemarch, part of her new Youtube series.
Have a listen to Tea or Books? with Simon (Stuck in a Book) and Rachel (Book Snob) as they debate ideas around books. Warning: have your notepad at the ready, as this show will leave you with a ton of recommendations.
For more reading ideas, from the backlist to the hottest new releases, sign up for Crib Notes, Elizabeth Morris’s monthly newsletter. Follow her on Instagram @cribnotesbookclub and Twitter @elizabethmoya for more tips and reviews.
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