Summer reading: the 50 hottest books to read now

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2025/jun/21/summer-reading-the-50-hottest-books-to-read-now

Summer reading: the 50 hottest books to read now

From dazzling debuts to unmissable memoirs, prize-winning novels to page-turning histories … Plus our pick of paperbacks and children’s fiction

Justine Jordan, David Shariatmadari, Imogen Russell Williams and Guardian staff

Sat 21 Jun 2025 04.01

My picks:

Fiction

Dream State by Eric Puchner
In this big, bittersweet American family saga, golden couple Cece and Charlie are preparing to marry – and then she meets his difficult, unhappy best friend … Mistakes are made and decades sweep by in an immersive panorama of friendship and rivalry, marriages and children, tragedy and love. Meanwhile, the climate crisis bites, and the sands of time are only running in one direction. A book to lose yourself in, but one that doesn’t duck the big issues.

Nonfiction
Already read some of these so next up:

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English
Can literature bring down totalitarian governments? The CIA thought so, covertly funnelling Orwell, Solzhenitsyn and the occasional Agatha Christie to hungry readers in the Eastern Bloc. English’s spy-inflected history makes the case for the political power of literature.

…

Your picks?