Have you ever wanted to live inside the world of your favorite book? I mean, really dive in and meet your favorite characters, stroll the same streets as the protagonists, eat their go-to meal at the local diner? Well, that's what happens to our girl, book lover Eileen, in "A Novel Love Story" by Ashley Poston. But once the initial excitement wears off, she quickly realizes it's harder than it seems to escape her favorite fictional town -- even with the help of the town's grumpy bookstore salesman, who is the only other person who knows they're living in a novel.
This book is essential reading and one of my most-recommended books. Particularly if you're looking, like Eileen, to escape the horrors of real life to dive into a story you know has a happy ending.

A deceptively simple story about an Irish coal salesman doing his Christmas deliveries becomes something else entirely by the end. It's a poignant and exquisitely written novella.

Former CNET writer Jen Karner has written a fantastic little series of books in the Legacy of Shadows. Drawing inspiration from shows like Supernatural, Buffy and other tales of fantasy, Cinders of Yesterday is the first of two books currently in the series, with Sins of Survival the second. The best way I can describe it is to imagine the Winchesters weren't brothers or related in any way. What shenanigans might they get up to? It's a sapphic story, in the middle of a fantasy one, and it's a lot of fun.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed was originally published in 2012. However, I re-read it about once a year because of Strayed's powerful essays, empathetic advice, and vulnerability.
What makes this book so fun is that it began as the Dear Sugar column. The book has taken a life of its own, and episodes of Dear Sugar are available as a podcast. After Tiny Beautiful Things became a Hulu series starring Kathryn Hahn, I re-read it. I not only recommend reading the book itself, but also listening to the podcast or watching the Hulu series if you're ever feeling confused and in need of a little authenticity. I have yet to see the live play (adapted by Nia Vardalos), but that, too, is on my list.

As a NorCal native, Steinbeck's work always hits close to home. This is my favorite Steinbeck novel, and I just re-read it last month. It's a multi-generational tale of two intertwined families in the Salinas Valley that explores identity, love, complex family relationships, and the power to choose between good and evil.
There is a Netflix adaptation coming out this fall with Florence Pugh, so it's a great book to add to your summer reading list, so that you can read the book before you watch the show.

It's been a while since I've read some proper hard sci-fi. Project Hail Mary and The Martian are great, but not as fantastical as I often like my Sci-Fi. We are legion is about a guy named Bob from our time who awakens to find his brain has been made into a deep-space probe after a car accident.
What happens next is never quite what you expect, and the endlessly branching narrative draws you in and invests you in a constantly evolving space drama. I'm on book two now, and it's not slowing down; in fact, the more time goes on, the more Bob there is to get into shenanigans.

I started reading the Silo series of books after enjoying two seasons of the Apple TV show. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the trilogy centers on a population living in an underground silo with no knowledge of why they are there or what remains of the outside world. It's part sci-fi, part thriller, part crime drama with some excellent character development. Having read the whole series back-to-back, I'm now very excited to see how Apple finishes things off in the third and final season of the show, which returns July 3.

Ben Rhodes, a former Deputy National Security Advisor, analyzes 15 speeches from prominent American leaders in both historical context and the impact that speech had on the country. It's a deep look at how leaders have spoken to US citizens over time and how those moments have framed their specific arguments about what it means to be American.

Jet Mason was attacked during a home invasion and has suffered a head injury that will be fatal, but she's not quite dead yet. With about a week left to live, she sets out to solve the mystery of her own murder. This was such an exciting and unexpectedly moving thriller. I finished it in about three days because I just could not put it down. Holly Jackson has written a ton of great YA mystery books, and Not Quite Dead Yet is her first adult fiction novel.

After the death of her beloved Pug and an innocent reply to a fan, Minneapolis based radio DJ Mary Lucia's life was flipped upside down as he became her stalker for three terrifying years. This memoir reads like an internal conversation with your truest, weirdest self and will have you laughing and cringing in terror all at once. This book is a finalist for the 2026 Minnesota Book Awards.

Like the title suggests, it's as though author Tove Jansson took summer -- how it feels both during childhood and as we grow old -- and somehow condensed it into just 22 vignettes. It follows 6-year-old Sophia and her grandmother as they spend the summer together on an island in the Gulf of Finland, discussing everything from life to death. If you want to be transported this summer, or any season really, it's a must-read.

One of the best and most detailed biographies of Napoleon there is. I read it in advance of the Ridley Scott movie (huge disappointment), but the biography is an excellent, detailed look at what made Napoleon such a archetypical great man of history. It really makes you appreciate his genius beyond just his military accomplishments, without hesitating to show his contradictions and failures. Incredibly readable for its size and length too, the audiobook version is particularly digestible.

I'm not one for romances but this one came to me quite unexpectedly. I met one of the couples from this book at a wedding I attended recently and their joy was enough to sell me on it. As the name suggests, it's a collection of queer love stories and a celebration of the desi aspects of queer love. It being Pride Month just feels fitting.

A tech startup discovers a source of unlimited energy -- What could go wrong? Flux is a gritty neo-noir thriller about an ‘80s detective show, a haunting loss, a shady corporation and terrible consequences. Its chapters alternate nimbly between the past, the present and the future. There were moments when I wasn't sure what the heck was going on, but that only made me want to keep reading.

This is a novella about a young boy narrating the story of his quiet childhood with a distracted mother and a frail grandmother. The one bright spot in his days is a woman at the local supermarket sandwich counter, whose electric-blue eyelids fascinate him so much that he secretly names her Ms Ice Sandwich and stops by just to watch her work. As his grandmother’s health declines and his fearless friend Tutti coaxes him out of his shell, he begins to learn that the people we love don’t stay forever, and that finding the courage to face loss is a quiet part of growing up.

I like it because it’s a book about a kind of loss that isn’t devastating at first, the sort that doesn’t feel like much when you’re young but quietly catches up with you as you age. It’s warm and hopeful, and it lets you see moving on and facing your fears as something positive, a chance to find the kind of courage that will carry you into adulthood.