What To Read

Sure, Long Island might be famous for its epic traffic snarls and endless strip malls, but this epic stretch of suburbia in the shadow of New York City has also inspired some literary masterpieces. From timeless classics to page-turning thrillers, we've got a Greatest Hits of books with unforgettable scenes set in Long Island.

Great Black Hope (2025) by Rob Franklin

According to Vanity Fair, this is "the novel you'll see on every Hamptons lounger this summer." This buzzing debut is actually set in New York, but kicks off with a fateful incident at a Hamptons hotspot.

"A son of the Black bourgeoisie grapples with the limits of his privilege...Subjects that might make for solemn reading are rendered thoroughly absorbing by the author’s radiant prose and razor-sharp observations. A captivating novel of dissolution and redemption." - Kirkus Reviews

Long Island (2024) by Colm Tóibín

Ellis, the enigmatic hero of Toibin’s Brooklyn, returns in this critically acclaimed sequel set in 70s Long Island.

"Colm Tóibín has an unhurried way of inviting the reader into his fictional world, like a perfect host who spoils you with delicious food and drink but at such a gentle pace you never feel overfed. Quite the opposite: When the feast is over, you are instantly ready to return for more ... A stirring journey, but its author does not showily dictate its speed or direction. He creates a heartbreaking world but does not impose it; instead, he parts a curtain and allows time for a slow, intense deepening of the drama behind it." - Elena Lappin, The Washington Post

Sag Harbor (2010) by Colson Whitehead

A funny, nostalgic coming-of-age summer tale from one of our most celebrated novelists

"Whitehead’s delicious language and sarcastic, clever voice fit this teenager who’s slowly constructing himself ... Still, with the story meandering like a teenager’s attention, the book feels more like a memoir than a traditional plot-driven novel. It’s easy to come away thinking not much happens — Whitehead has said as much — but Sag Harbor mirrors life, which is also plotless ... It’s time for us to hear more post-Black stories like [Benji's]." - Touré, The New York Times Book Review

Bad Summer People (2024) by Emma Rosenbaum

A stylish mystery of infidelity, backstabbing and murder set on one of Long Island’s most exclusive strips of sand

"Rosenblum charts the intricate rivalries and obsessions ping-ponging around this cloistered idyll with an anthropologist’s rigor, tracing in sharp detail how this complex web of relationships could escalate from affairs to larceny and all the way to murder." - The New York Times

Long Island Compromise (2024) by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Three siblings unravel a buried family trauma in suburban Long Island from the author of Fleishman is in Trouble.

"Raucous and ravishing ... Suggests that this author’s talents are boundless ... I’m not going to say whether the first line of the book is prophetic, but it almost doesn’t matter. Brodesser-Akner has written a humane, brazen, gorgeous novel whose words dance exuberantly on the page." - Leigh Haber, The Los Angeles Times

The Guest (2024) by Emma Cline

Prepare to cringe when a Hamptons house guest’s weekend goes off the rails with a dinner party faux pas

"Must read ... While the book is a page-turner literally set at the beach, it’s not a stereotypical beach read ... Alex’s movements create a deep sense of dread for the reader—as the pages turn, our anxiety rises ... So captivating." - Cady Lang, TIME

The Great Gatsby (2004) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

One hundred years later, Gatsby’s parties power and loss still echo on Long Island

"Gatsby is about reaching, striving, even though we know, inevitably, we’ll fall short. No one has ever captured the yearning — not for who we are, but for who we want to be as Americans — in such a powerhouse amalgam of poetry, slang and oracular prose." - The Washington Post

Leave the World Behind (2021) by Rumaan Alam

A family summer vacation becomes your worst nightmare in this apocalyptic Hamptons-set thriller

"... enthralling ... Leave the World Behind is a coy little thing: a disaster novel without the disaster ... In most literature of this ilk, the disaster, whether rising seas or a virus, is a force of narrative tension: the reader is keen to learn how humans move from a time of upheaval to one of stability. Alam never gets there; upheaval is all his characters have. His achievement is to see that his genre’s traditional arc, which relies on the idea of aftermath, no longer makes sense." - Hillary Kelly, The New Yorker

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1975)

This brick of a biography will crush your beach towel — and you’ll never see “the Island” the same way again.

"Like many other people who have looked at a city and thought, I could probably plan that, I am spending 2024 following along with the '99% Invisible' podcast book club and reading 'The Power Broker.' I’m only six hundred pages in, and already Robert Caro’s 1974 masterpiece is changing my life." - Blythe Roberson, The New Yorker

Bluebeard (1998) by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut’s sharp and funny take on an aging artist seeking peace on his Long Island estate

"Ranks with Vonnegut's best and goes one step beyond . . . joyous, soaring fiction." - The Atlanta Journal and Constitution