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The Atlantic's Summer Reading Guide

Tertulia

20 books in list

The Atlantic's summer reading guide is live! From backlist gems to brand-new buzzing novels, this list of 20 books is a solid bet for stocking up on books for the summer.

Book Cover for: Heat Wave, Penelope Lively

Heat Wave

Penelope Lively

"The pleasure of Heat Wave is its slow, mesmerizing drama... Never has a mother-in-law’s judgment seemed so deliciously understated—and so devastating in its conclusion." Picked by Atlantic Deputy Editor Jane Yong Kim

Paperback, 1997

$13.99

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Book Cover for: Toy Fights: A Boyhood, Don Paterson

Toy Fights: A Boyhood

Don Paterson

"It makes you want to delete everything you’ve ever written and start again, this time telling the truth." Picked by Atlantic staff writer James Parker

Hardcover, 2023

$27.95

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold, Bolu Babalola

Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold

Bolu Babalola

"Babalola’s story collection updates and retells romantic myths and fables from a bevy of cultures, tossing a reader into the richly imagined world of characters..." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Emma Sarappo

Paperback, 2022

$16.99

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Book Cover for: Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Friday Black

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

"Friday Black presents a warped reflection of our own reality that feels both horrifying and clarifying." Picked by Atlantic senior editor Lenika Cruz

Paperback, 2018

$16.99

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Book Cover for: The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power, Garry Wills

The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power

Garry Wills

"It’s a riveting critique of the first family of 20th-century liberalism..." Picked by Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer

Paperback, 2002

$21.99

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Book Cover for: Travels in HyperReality, Umberto Eco

Travels in HyperReality

Umberto Eco

"In the essays, the theorist and novelist plays a classic role: the foreigner who is alternately amused and appalled by American maximalism." Picked by Atlantic staff writer Megan Garber

Paperback, 2013

$18.95

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Book Cover for: The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life, Doug Bock Clark

The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life

Doug Bock Clark

"Clark recounts the lives of the Lamalerans with a deep respect, while also spinning a wondrous, thrilling story out of their struggles..." Picked by Atlantic senior editor Gal Beckerman

Paperback, 2019

$18.99

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955, Harald Jähner

Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955

Harald Jähner

"Rendered with irony and based on skillful scholarship, Jähner’s book describes both a democratic rebirth and a moral evasion, uncomfortably and inextricably linked." Picked by Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer

Paperback, 2023

$18.00

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Book Cover for: Francisco, Alison Mills Newman

Francisco

Alison Mills Newman

"Mills Newman’s novel feels like a long party, punctuated by difficult questions: about white standards of beauty, what it really means to be a revolutionary, how to be an artist, and how to be a woman partnered with a man." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Maya Chung

Paperback, 2023

$14.95

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: Elena Knows, Claudia Piñeiro

Elena Knows

Claudia Piñeiro

"She describes Elena’s minute-by-minute experience so meticulously that I was almost able to comprehend—even just for a moment—the incredible multitude of perspectives that exist in this world at once." Picked by Atlantic senior associate editor Faith Hill

Paperback, 2021

$15.95

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: My Men, Victoria Kielland

My Men

Victoria Kielland

"The universe is a live wire in the hands of Byrnhild, later called Bella, later called Belle Gunness, in Kielland’s short, electric novel." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Emma Sarappo

Hardcover, 2023

$25.00

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: The Afterlives, Thomas Pierce

The Afterlives

Thomas Pierce

"No matter how surreal things become, Pierce implies, people will keep moving forward in much the same way, living humdrum little lives together, wondering and hoping in the face of existential mystery." Picked by Atlantic senior associate editor Faith Hill

Paperback, 2019

$16.00

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Book Cover for: The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway, Merve Emre

The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway

Merve Emre

"Woolf’s daring experiment to find out whether 'the inside of the mind,' as she put it in her notebook, 'can be made luminous.'" Picked by Atlantic literary editor Ann Hulbert

Hardcover, 2021

$35.00

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: Her First American, Lore Segal

Her First American

Lore Segal

"The originality of this love story between two outsiders in 1950s New York City, Carter Bayoux and Ilka Weissnix, cannot be overstated." Picked by Atlantic senior editor Gal Beckerman

Paperback, 2004

$18.99

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: The Stone Face, William Gardner Smith

The Stone Face

William Gardner Smith

"Trapped by a dizzying moral question, Simeon is forced to confront the shifting realities of identity and racial allegiance as he fights the personal demons that have followed him across the ocean." Picked by Atlantic associate creative director Oliver Munday

Paperback, 2021

$16.95

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Book Cover for: Hotel Du Lac, Anita Brookner

Hotel Du Lac

Anita Brookner

"The novel, Brookner’s fourth, drew uncharitable responses after it won the Booker Prize in 1984. But there’s fascinating, bracing tension amid the book’s women, each deemed unfit to be anywhere else..." Picked by Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert

Paperback, 1995

$15.95

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Book Cover for: The Guest, Emma Cline

The Guest

Emma Cline

"Alex, the protagonist of Cline’s second novel, is an escort in her early 20s... She’s broke, with a busted phone and nowhere to stay; she survives only by taking advantage of everyone who crosses her path." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Maya Chung

Hardcover, 2023

$28.00

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: Quietly Hostile: Essays, Samantha Irby

Quietly Hostile: Essays

Samantha Irby

"No one describes the human body quite like Irby. She’s a poet of embarrassment: Her confessional style is frank and unashamed about all of its possible fleshy or sticky causes." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Emma Sarappo

Paperback, 2023

$17.00

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, David Grann

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

David Grann

"Grann simultaneously reconstructs history while telling a tale that is as propulsive and adventure-filled as any potboiler." Picked by Atlantic senior editor Gal Beckerman

Hardcover, 2023

$30.00

To Be Read
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Book Cover for: The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor

The Late Americans

Brandon Taylor

"The connections between Taylor’s multiple protagonists seem alternately random, doomed, and deeply romantic—much like the conditions that tie them to their creativity..." Picked by Atlantic associate editor Nicole Acheampong

Hardcover, 2023

$28.00

To Be Read
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