Beach Read Recs, Summer 2025
Actual summer season is almost upon us, which means that the promise of summer is fully engulfing us right now. The anticipation of warm weather, the planning and booking of beach trips, and above all, the fantasy of summer is running amok in our brains and souls. But as we all know, the Fantasy of Summer bears only passing and partial resemblance to the reality of summer. Every year, beginning around late April, I begin harboring deeply felt and completely unrealistic fantasies for my summer, dreaming of reduced work schedules, perfect sunny weather for three straight months, delicious grilled food from the farmer’s market, serene moods from everyone I might encounter but mostly my toddler (um, okay); and every year I am left disappointed by something: a tropical storm, a spate of overcast days, travel mishaps, crushing (not to mention RUDE) work deadlines, illness.
Thus, every September I must look back and pick my way through the upsets to find, store, and enshrine the happy moments of my summers, because the entirety of summer never, ever lives up to the fantasy our Instagram-drenched culture demands. It would be much easier if I just managed my expectations like a good and responsible adult, but I love the idealism too damn much. My summers are always living proof that The Secret does not work.
Even so, I hope we are all able to carve out some time for relaxing with a stack of great Beach Reads once our weather warms up. If you want to know which books are hitting shelves this summer and already heralded as the Must-Haves for your pool tote, a Google search will deliver those lists quickly and easily (some of them do sound great). But I like to keep things a little more personal in this space. A good number of these books are no longer the newest, hottest thing, but that doesn’t diminish their appeal. So I humbly offer you my full-throated recommendations for books that I absolutely loved, and have vetted and approved for that most luxurious occasion of an afternoon to yourself on a warm day by whichever sparkling body of water you can access.
I’ve chosen ten books I have devoured, that lend themselves to easy, devourable reading, halved evenly between fiction and nonfiction. I hope you find at least one title that intrigues you!
FICTION:
Nothing Serious by Emily J. Smith
This book actually is from 2025, and it’s fantastic! Although its pub date was last winter, I think this novel is a fine addition to your beach bag. A propulsive, absorbing read: come for the unrequited love, a possible murder although maybe not, and a messy but very likeable heroine; stay for the incisive analysis and cultural criticisms of twenty-first-century dating, girlboss feminism, and tech bro culture. Nothing Serious is a great, easy read that will keep you hooked!
God Spare the Girls by Kelsey McKinney
A coming-of-age banger set in the evangelical Christian milieu of suburban Dallas megachurches, hoo boy. Two young adult sisters, the daughters of a megachurch head pastor, are grappling with the broken promises of purity culture, young marriage, and their pastor father’s affair - because of course he is. McKinney gives us a nuanced and engrossing story, with richly developed characters and a heaping side dose of catharsis for those of us who, like McKinney, were raised in that shitshow. I couldn’t love this book more!
Okay, my next three fiction recs delve into the horror genre, simply because that is where I spend the most time. Move to the Nonfiction recs if horror is not your thing! Except maybe consider the first offering, because it’s definitely a mild entry into the genre and I think you might love it.
Joyland by Stephen King
Joyland might be the most heartwarming novel King has ever penned? I’d firmly class this one as “cozy horror” - more suspense than gore, and not all that scary. A young college man nursing his recently broken heart of gold works at a small amusement park for the summer, only to discover the ghost of a young woman previously murdered at the park is still haunting the haunted house ride. He embarks on a quest to solve her murder, meeting some lovely people along the way. Joyland is a short read - by normal people's standards, not King’s! - and it’s actually quite sweet with enough thriller in it to satisfy. Give it a shot! Just, if this ends up being your first Stephen King novel, PLEASE don’t expect more of this from the rest of his oeuvre!
The Quiet Tenant by Clemence Marchallon
The Quiet Tenant is a perfect thriller: disturbing plot, propulsive pacing, characters worth the emotional investment. A suddenly widowed father of a teenage daughter must vacate the family home, which is a real problem since he’s been keeping the woman he kidnapped years ago hidden in the shed! How will this work? Does she escape? Does his daughter find out? A wonderful debut novel, don’t miss it!
The Eyes are the Best Part by Monika Kim
This novel was one of my lovely Christmas presents, the first book I finished in 2025, and I’ve been recommending it to anyone listening for months now! It’s horror, it’s body horror, it’s antiheroine, it’s coming-of-age angst. Our protagonist is a young woman dealing with too. much. shit. and she goes off the deep end and you kind of love her for it. The book’s title gives a clue about the specifics of her violent outbursts. I’ll let you discover the rest for yourself!
NONFICTION:
I’m going to start out heavy on the memoir genre, then pivot. Here we go!
1974: A Personal History by Francine Prose
I read 1974 last summer, and I don’t have words for how much I loved it. As a young woman, Francine Prose had a brief affair with Tony Russo, the guy who, along with Daniel Ellsburg, leaked the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970s. Russo was a very thought-provoking and enigmatic character, for sure, but you also get to disappear into 1970s San Francisco from Prose’s youth perspective, which was so lush and enjoyable. Prose offers up grit and romance, a most eloquent transportation to another world. One of the best books I read in 2024!
Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever
Care and Feeding is a very recent publication and bestseller, so you might be familiar; if you haven’t yet picked it up, I’m happy to urge you to do so. Woolever is a former assistant to both Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain, and delving into that world is quite intriguing - to say the least! This memoir is also about addiction, sobriety, infidelity, and the underbellies of fine dining and celebrity chefs. Care and Feeding is a perfect memoir, full of wild stories, messy lives, and big hearts.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
Despite my love of Ina Garten’s cookbooks and television shows, I seriously considered not buying her memoir. I didn’t know how it would be enjoyable to read because, let’s face it, Ina Garten doesn’t have, like, problems. Hers is quite the charmed life, and good for her, but does that make an interesting story? In a way, yes! I’m so glad I caved and read the book. Because the book is charming, and when you think it cannot get more charming, it does, so you’d think you’d get a little angry but somehow you do not, which makes the book breezy and super enjoyable. And Garten does lift the veil into her intellectual and business processes, which are very interesting and inspiring. She’s a hard worker, a kind human with excellent taste, and a real businesswoman who is SO unafraid to make mistakes, which makes me love her more!
The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper
Jessica Hopper is an acclaimed music critic whose career goes back two decades, and this book is a compilation of her best work. By being a woman in the male-dominated industry of music journalism, and seeking out assignments to cover female artists and bands, Hopper is something of a cultural analyst and critic as well as music expert. In this truly phenomenal book, you’ll find not only Hopper’s brilliance, but structural variety: there are straight-up album reviews, but also oral histories; artist profiles; a reckoning over the music industry’s willingness to turn a blind eye to R. Kelly for way too long; a thoroughly compelling and eye-opening interview with the women who worked at Rolling Stone in the 1970s; and an incredibly fun short piece about what Lady Gaga wore to the airport one time. This remains one of my all-time favorite nonfiction works!
Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik
New Yorker columnist Jia Tolentino blurbed this book by saying, “I snorted this book” - and after I read it, I viscerally understood the sentiment. This is, to put it a tad indelicately, a snortable book. Or we could say inhalable, if that’s more your thing. It’s a mesmerizing romp through Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s, and a terrific biography of author Eve Babitz. If you’ve never heard of Babitz, a) don’t feel bad, I hadn’t either; and b) definitely dive in to discover what an enticing literary figure she was! Hollywood’s Eve is a short, propulsive history you can really sink into and not get up until you’ve turned the final page. I’m putting Anolik’s second book, Didion and Babitz, on my own Beach Read Bucket List for this summer.
And now I’m handing the reins to you, reader: what books are already on your Beach Read Bucket List that we all need to know about? What titles do you recommend I add to mine?