The Morning: What to read this summer

June 15, 2024

	By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. If you fantasize about reading your way from now until Labor Day but need help corralling your curiosity, our lists of upcoming fiction and nonfiction selections can help.

In an illustration, a person with outstretched arms balances on a giant open book, high above a city in which all the buildings are made of books.

María Jesús Contreras

Volume control

I wrote last week about how finding something interesting to watch has been a challenge in recent months. In these moments, I turn to books. If we can agree that streaming options have been lackluster lately, we can also agree that there's really no excuse for griping when neither you nor I have even scratched the surface of all the books we've been meaning to read. But why, then, am I not living my truth, the truth of being lost rapturously in multiple books at once? I have some ideas.

In December, I dropped out of a reading challenge I'd participated in for two years. The object was to read a book a week, each corresponding to a specific category, such as "a book featured in a celebrity book club" or "a book from a genre you normally avoid."

The challenge was exactly what I needed in 2021: I had read two books in six months when a friend asked if I wanted in. I eagerly accepted, excited for some structure and incentive to increase my literary appetite. I loved having an assignment each week. I loved that I had access to a boisterous Facebook group in which participants — all friends and friends of friends who'd become a cozy family after many years — gathered to swap reviews and recommendations.

Some time in my second year, I got cocky. Now that I was regularly polishing off a book or two a week, why did I need assignments? I started to chafe at the categories. What if I wanted to read something that didn't match up with any of them? Surely my own curiosity would be powerful enough to keep me reading at this clip! I'd probably read even more books if I were freed from the challenge's confines, allowed to consume any title that struck my fancy, right?

You know where this is going. There are a lot of books out there. And I've started most of them. In order to finish books, I need a plan. I need a system, even a loose one, that keeps me binge-reading (why isn't this a more popular term?), one book followed immediately by the next.

I'm considering frameworks for summer reading that will get me back on track and won't feel too restrictive. Should I commit to reading only from my stacks, the books I aspirationally pile up on the night stand and the coffee table, intending always to read them next but never making any appreciable progress? Should I give myself a number of books to be completed by Labor Day and let my interests wander? Is this the summer I read all of Henry James, or only Nobel laureates in literature?

My colleagues at the Book Review present a tempting proposition: 19 works of nonfiction and 33 works of fiction coming this summer. Even at my most athletic, I wasn't capable of 54 books in 11 weeks, but perhaps choosing one per week from these lists would make for a pleasant but rigorous arrangement.

I've already started Griffin Dunne's "The Friday Afternoon Club," a memoir of his famous family (his father was the crime writer Dominick Dunne; Joan Didion was his aunt) and it's pretty juicy. "Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV," by the television critic Emily Nussbaum, looks irresistible. And if "Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the F.B.I. and the Entire Banking System — and Pocketed $40 Million," by Tanya Smith, is as exciting as it sounds, there's hope for attention spans everywhere, even those as dissolute as mine.

And the summer's fiction sounds pretty appealing, too. Chigozie Obioma, a two-time Booker Prize finalist, has a new novel about a student trying to rescue his brother in the midst of the Nigerian civil war. After adoring "The Need," I'll read anything by Helen Phillips; her novel "Hum," a techno-dystopian thriller, sounds excruciating and delicious. And "The Book of Elsewhere," by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, looks like fun — it's based on a comic series about an immortal warrior who would prefer to be mortal. I'm not sure I can identify with that motivation, but I'm enchanted by the idea all the same.

For more

Let The Times help you find your next book.
June's new releases.
If you need inspiration, check out these photos of people reading outdoors, from 2022.

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Film and TV

Clockwise from top left: Josh O'Connor; Mike Faist; Matthew Healy; Jeremy Allen White. Clockwise from top left, Andrew Kelly/Reuters; Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated Press; Francois Durand/Getty Images; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

"Rodent Men": A new term is catching on to describe a certain type of Hollywood actor that is very hot right now.
Our reviewer says that the pleasures of "Inside Out 2" are "agreeably familiar." The Pixar film is one of nine movies our critics are talking about this week.
Ncuti Gatwa, known for his role in "Sex Education," is in the midst of his first season at the helm of "Doctor Who." He spoke to The Times about inhabiting the role.
Actors from the 1999 hit "The Blair Witch Project," among the most lucrative independent films ever made, spoke to Variety about missing out on its profits.

Music

Eminem, Drake and J. Cole: On this week's "Popcast," the hosts discuss the paths open to aging rappers.
Julius Rodriguez, the 25-year-old jazz prodigy, hones a more audacious sound on his second album, "Evergreen."
Françoise Hardy, the moody French pop star who incarnated 1960s cool, died at 80.
A lawyer for the rapper Young Thug was taken into custody after a courtroom dispute with the judge, further complicating the artist's chaotic RICO trial.

THE LATEST NEWS

A man holding an AR-15 rifle with a bump stock attachment.

An AR-15 with a bump stock. Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration's ban on bump stocks, which let semiautomatic rifles fire at high speed, in a 6-3 ruling. The liberal justices dissented.
Israel said a strike on Hamas fighters in a displaced persons' camp in Rafah last month was unlikely to harm civilians. A Times investigation found that civilian casualties were almost inevitable.
A bankruptcy judge ordered the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to liquidate his personal assets to pay Sandy Hook families, but left his Infowars business intact.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, attended King Charles's birthday parade after saying she was "making good progress" in her cancer treatment.
The House passed an $895 billion defense policy bill that would restrict abortion access and transgender medical care in the military. The Senate will almost certainly leave those measures out of its version of the bill.
Pope Francis has repeatedly sent gay Catholics signals of greater acceptance. Reports that he repeated a homophobic slur this week are giving many of them "a sense of whiplash."

The Games Sale. Limited time offer.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

	By Andrew LaVallee

🎭 The Tony Awards (Sunday): Broadway's big televised night airs on CBS at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific, and it'll offer both Oscars-level anticipation for theater fans and a way to get a sense of what ticket to buy for anyone visiting Manhattan in the coming months. Want to see if you can predict the winners? We've got you covered. You can also see who our chief critic thinks will and should win.

🐉 "House of the Dragon" (Sunday): Season 2 of this "Game of Thrones" prequel returns, bringing dragons, revenge, platinum blonds and (let's face it) incest back for another summer. The only thing is that the season premiere begins … one hour into the Tonys. Do what you have to do.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

A square chocolate cake with rich, swirled chocolate frosting sits in a baking pan with one slice removed. The missing slice is on a small plate next to the pan, with a few crumbs scattered around.

Joseph De Leo for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

By Melissa Clark

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

It's Father's Day tomorrow. Wouldn't Dad like a cake? Genevieve Ko's one-bowl chocolate cake is quick and easy to whisk together without a mixer but tastes as richly bittersweet as if you'd been baking all day. Genevieve suggests flavoring it with oolong or black tea, but espresso or bourbon mixed into some boiling water would work just as well (use a quarter-cup each of water and espresso or bourbon). Sprinkle it with some confectioner's sugar, or go all out and make Genevieve's two-ingredient fudgy frosting to slather on top. Dad's sure to love it any which way.

REAL ESTATE

Zulema Mejias and Oscar Peñas in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Katherine Marks for The New York Times

The Hunt: A New York City couple wanted a small house on a quiet Brooklyn street. Which one did they choose? Play our game.

What you get for $1.3 million: A Craftsman house in Denver; a midcentury-modern house in Riverside, Calif.; or an 1841 Cape Cod-style house in Newburyport, Mass.

Tiny living: Inventive design allowed a woman to create different living spaces within her 312-square-foot London apartment.

LIVING

A chubby gray koala bear lounges in between two branches of a tree.

A koala lounges at the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park. Susan Wright for The New York Times

Bang for your buck: This summer, American travelers will find their money buys them more in some unexpected countries, including Japan and Australia.

Ambition monster: A writer had a difficult childhood. It made her an amazing employee.

Internet affliction: The term "brainrot" captures the condition of being terminally online.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

Your summer checklist is on sale

Our advice for getting the most out of this summer? Do a little preparation now. Wirecutter's experts have spent hundreds of hours testing everything you'll need for a successful season — whether your plans involve cross-country flights, beach trips or homemade ice cream on the porch. We've rounded up some of our favorite essentials and secured truly great discounts. A few standouts include a crisp set of linen sheets for better sleep on hot summer nights, an anti-mosquito gadget (ditch the citronella candles; they don't work), and an iconic beach tote that should last a lifetime. —Brittney Ho

GAME OF THE WEEK

Germany scores in the opening match of the tournament. Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Euro 2024: The European Championship, one of the world's great soccer tournaments, has kicked off in Germany, with 24 nations competing for continental glory over the next month. England is the oddsmakers' favorite, and has the most star-studded roster, though history is against them — the English haven't won a major tournament since 1966. Germany is also rich with talent, but it too is fighting history, as a country hasn't won the Euro on its home soil in 40 years. Perhaps the safest pick is France, which has both a solid team and a recent history of success. Games air at 9 a.m., 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. Eastern on Fox networks all week.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was tomahawk.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines.

And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Correction: Yesterday's newsletter referred imprecisely in one sentence to lab leaks of past coronaviruses. While coronaviruses before Covid-19 had escaped from labs, no major coronavirus outbreak is documented to have originated with a lab leak.

Editor: David Leonhardt

Deputy Editor: Adam B. Kushner

News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti

Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson

News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu

News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar

Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

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