Our Summer 2026 Reading List

Connor

Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine

Timing and intonation are typically the keys to making me genuinely laugh out loud; some of the funniest parts of a movie like The Big Lebowski, for example, aren’t strictly speaking jokes, but I find them hilarious because of the particular delivery. This is why it’s rare for a book to make me actually laugh. I appreciate the humor and blow a little puff of air through my nose, but that’s usually about it.

All that said, Treasure Island!!! had me vibrating with laughter on multiple occasions. Our unnamed narrator is an unlikable slacker floundering from job to job who happens upon Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel and is struck by how timid and uninteresting her life is, having never—unlike protagonist Jim Hawkins—broken from her friends, raced for the beach, stolen a boat, or killed a man. She decides to live her life according to what she identifies as the book’s “core values”: boldness, resolution, independence, and horn-blowing. Her twisted, selfish, and misguided interpretation of these ideals sends her tripping through a series of increasingly odd jobs (including cashier at a “pet library”) and throws her relationships into chaos. All the while, our seemingly unbothered hero holds true to the tenets of her holy text, resulting in a surprisingly insightful commentary on family dynamics that suggests the only sane response to the modern world may in fact be insanity.

Nancy

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I’ve read a lot of books this summer, and for a while I resisted writing this post about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. After all, I read it back in the spring, and haven’t I sung its praises enough? But then I relented. Why would I write about another book? This is THE book. I’ve been talking about it since I read it. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve recommended it to tons of people. So if I’ve spoken to you recently, I’ve probably already told you: Do yourself a favor and pick this one up. 

It’s worth noting that I wasn’t sure I’d like a book about video games, as I’m not much of a gamer. But while the story follows two childhood friends who develop a successful video game company, it’s really not about video games at all. Throughout the book, Sam and Sadie learn things, make mistakes, do some growing up, and generally go about the business of being human. It’s so thoughtful, so beautifully written, so chock full of thinking and ideas and people being people that it really doesn’t matter what the book is about. (In that respect, it reminded me of The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, a book I loved despite being nominally about baseball, a topic I don’t care about at all.)

Adrian

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré

As I see it, there are two types of summer reads. One is light and breezy, a book that doesn’t ask too much of you. The other is something you can really dig into, the kind of byzantine novel that you can only fully appreciate when you have nothing else occupying your mind. A Perfect Spy falls into the latter category. 

Le Carré is probably best known for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I myself first fell in love with his storytelling as portrayed on screen by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardner. As with those works, A Perfect Spy is dense with spycraft—and not the Jason Bourne kind. This is slow and smoldering stuff, informed by le Carré’s own career in British intelligence. But if you have the patience, it will be rewarded. 

Beyond the plotting, what I found most fascinating about this novel was its autobiographical bent. In addition to being an intelligence officer, le Carré was the son of a scamp and a conman. The eponymous spy (a.k.a. Magnus Pym) is also an intelligence officer with a rake for a father. Throughout the novel, Pym writes a memoir to his son describing his upbringing and how it shaped him. The prose of these passages is richly stylized and astonishingly good, and it leaves you wondering how much of this is about Pym and how much is this le Carré’s therapy laid bare on the page. I suppose the perfect spy knows that the best hiding place is in plain sight.

Neal

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Full disclosure: Over the last decade or so, in my reading and elsewhere, my interest in the preoccupations of affluent white Americans has waned considerably; instead, I’ve focused on increasing my knowledge and awareness of individuals and communities different from my own. That being said, I found Andrew Sean Greer’s picaresque Less—the sleeper recipient of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction—borderline irresistible. The novel ticked an abundance of boxes for a reader prone to feel affinity with the protagonist, an (ahem) Introspective, Gay, White Male Writer of a Certain Age. On the cusp of his 50th birthday, Arthur Less embarks on a whirlwind circumnavigation of the globe—fleeing chapters of his past while encountering characters and paramours both new and familiar to him. (In a delightfully ironic twist, one of his international adventures centers around a literary prize.)

To coin a tortured metaphor, Greer’s taut and heartfelt narrative walks multiple tightropes. The emotions depicted are poignant without being maudlin; the characters are types but not tropes; the metaphorical threads he spins are powerful and surprising without feeling overly contrived. While I can’t vouch for the degree to which Arthur’s peregrinations will resonate for others, they struck deep and resonant chords with yours truly. In that regard, Less delivered far more than I bargained for. 

Tiffany

Salty by Kate Myers

I can imagine few better ways to spend a sweltering hot Minnesota heat wave than lounging about on a pontoon in the Boundary Waters, beach read in hand. There’s something to be said for an easy read – nothing too thought provoking, while still being engaging –  read while soaking up the sun and backed by the leisurely sounds of nature. Salty was exactly that. 

A heartwarming tale of two sisters, Salty explores family relationships on both sides of the coin: from our working-class protagonist to the high-profile yacht owners who’ve hired her. With just enough action to keep you engaged rather than nodding off under the warm lull of the midday sun, Salty provides a tropical escape and interwoven plotlines across a quirky cast of characters, peppered with mild commentary on just how silly some upper-class whims can be (fast-tracking a high-rise structure on the sandy beaches of a lagoon almost always spells disaster, right?). The resolution comes at you cleanly, a final result that doesn’t shock you but wasn’t so obvious at the midway point of the book – a mystery you can put down and pick up as frequently or infrequently as you’re able to visit a beach or take a weekend to yourself. Salty is a highly satisfying vacation of a novel, best served beachside with a cold drink in hand. Cheers!

Ian

Funny Because It’s True by Christine Wenc

Libretto’s offsite last fall was in Madison, Wisconsin, where I fell in love with Culver’s, cheese curds, and Spotted Cow farmhouse ale. I brought along Funny Because It’s True, Christine Wenc’s firsthand account of one of Madison’s funniest exports, The Onion. Wenc was a member of The Onion’s original staff, and she shares how the satirical newspaper was born in a University of Wisconsin–Madison dorm room and eventually became a global sensation. 

Wenc gleefully describes how she and her fellow writers honed The Onion’s comedic voice of reporting bizarre “news” in a deadpan monotone, which still occasionally results in someone mistaking their coverage as genuine (a Republican congressman once reposted the article “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex” on his Facebook page). Shortly after I finished the book, The Onion bought InfoWars, enraging its former owner, Alex Jones, one of America’s most toxic conspiracy theorists; The Onion has promised to turn InfoWars into a comedy brand that “erases Jones’ legacy.” Wenc’s writing reminded me that laughter is the best medicine for our absurd times, and pairs well with a ButterBurger.