Summer Reading 2026

Let's talk all things reading. You're probably looking for something to read and I got your back. I will be going through what I am interested in reading to some of the websites I visited said. Those lists were quite interesting to read. There may have been a repeat of a certain book or books on that list as well.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Let's Talk podcast. My name is Hannah Covington and happy summer. And you know why I'm saying that is because school's out and the sun is out, it's getting warm, and kids are spending more time outside, hopefully. I know I was pushed to go outside and do stuff to a degree growing up. Mainly when I was told to go outside, it was to go to the pool. Otherwise, I hope you guys are enjoying the start of summer. I know I've been enjoying the start of summer. It's been a pretty interesting start to summer so far, with Memorial Day kind of being a little dreary per se, from if I'm remembering correctly. I know some parts it was more rainy than others. Hopefully, more people got to have more sunshine than rain when that happened. But it is way past Memorial Day when this episode comes out. And if you cannot tell by today's episode, I'm gonna be tackling one of the things people are wanting to understand and people forget to do during the summer. And this is always reminded of two kids when the school is about to be let out is summer reading. We could all use some summer reading. That's including you adults. I am talking to you. It's not just for kids because libraries nowadays, as I've been learning since last summer, if I am remembering correctly, I worked in an event with the radio station where they did a kickoff summer reading party. And I always remembered it was only for children, but nowadays it's for all ages. Can you believe it? I I can't believe it either. I want to tackle the thought of what should we be reading for summer reading, by the way, because I'm curious as much as you are, because I'm an avid reader. I know we have some people wondering what they should be reading by the pool or at the beach or at the lake, or just simply another way to keep themselves entertained while not doom scrolling or getting bored with Netflix or Prime or Disney Plus, all the streaming services. I am your lucky guide of trying to navigate you towards some good reads this summer. So stay tuned for my June reading book report in July, but this episode's only going to be about summer reading in particular, and what are going to be the top books people should be reading for the summer months. I know there are books you probably personally want to read, but you're also probably trying to keep up with pop culture and what they are reading. I know I'm trying to keep up with pop culture and reading while also accomplishing my own books. I want to get off my physical TBR. And there have been a couple books that have been gracing my sh my social media that I will be trying to tackle this summer. As well, let's roll into this episode and start talking all summer reading. I know you're probably wondering, Hannah, what are you wanting to read this year for summer? Well, I actually sort of have a list going in my head of what I want to read, by the way. Some of them are quite interesting. They are a little outside my window of what I want to read. I know people will be like, wait, what? Yes. One of the books that I really badly want to read, and I just literally picked it up like the other day from the bookstore, from an indie bookstore, by the way, because we have an indie bookstore here in my hometown, and I decided to visit it because I was getting out of the house and I was like, why not? Why not? There were a few books that caught my eye that I picked up. The main one being yesteryear that has been very popular on the social media feeds of what people have been saying. It's either been a mixed feeling of sorts of the book of what I've been hearing. There's still some other books I know that will be on my list. I know I mentioned yesteryear being the main one that has taken a lot of my interest of wanting to be read on my list of books I want to read. I have quite a bit of TBR is what book talk calls it on my Goodreads. Yes, I keep a decent sized stock of what I want to read on my Goodreads page. I wondered what the want-to-read be part was until I really learned what it was, until just recently. I have quite a bit of books I want to read. 30 books to be exact. But will I read all 30 books? I really don't think so. Some of the books I really want to read is the Powerless series. I think I'll be probably diving into another book series pretty soon once I get through some of my currently stacked up physical TBR I have, which will be really good. I'm very excited about that. Some of that physical TBR includes the new movie that just came out recently on Netflix. If you've been living under rock, I'm surprised you don't know about it, which is Remarkably Bright Creatures. This book came out in 2022. I never got around to reading it because of life. I was in college, starting a new degree, trying to figure my way out in life. Just that's where I am. And I will I will probably be reading Remarkably Bright Creatures as my next book. The faster I read this book, the closer I can be to watching the movie that apparently is getting high praise from my understanding. I am also probably gonna try to get around to reading the off-campus series if possible. Gonna get around to that. Even though I'm watching the TV show right now, I should have been reading the books before the TV show. I have a lot of other books I want to read before I get to this series. What else do I want to read? Then Heritans Games is another one I wanna tackle. Shatter Me is one I want to tackle. The Book Woman of Trouble Some Creek, which is a book series. I want to tackle that. What else would I like to tackle? There's a bunch of books out that are a modern version of Disney Tales. I want to tackle. Because she was trying to encourage me to read. I was just being encouraged to read. And I'm glad there was somebody encouraging me to read because reading has become my hobby now. And I don't know if I should be thanking that person for my reading love. Reading is my love language, and so I want to tackle the Ink Ark series as one of the series I want to tackle. The Quicksilver series is another series I want to tackle. What else do I want to tackle? The Wedding People, The Shield of Sparrows series I want to tackle. Just Friends, A Court of Thorn and Roses. I just have so many books and series I just want to accomplish over the summer and into the fall. I have too many books to read and too little time to read. I wish there were more days in summer where you can read. I am trying to make more days where I can sit and read all day. I have already done that. Once during the week, I mainly choose my reading days during the weekend. And I'm sharing real true facts about myself. One of my goals for summer reading is to try to read four books a month. And I'm a and I'm in month June at the current moment as I am recording this. And so far I am close to finishing my first book. And I will have read this book in a four-day span, which is wild because I was worried this was one of those books that was going to put me in another reading slump. And it has not. I will go into detail with that book in my book report episode, which will be coming out at the beginning of July. You will be hearing that podcast episode where I share my thoughts on that episode. But I'm just trying to find good books to read and sharing what I'm planning on reading for summer because it sounds like I have a lot, but I'm glad I have a decent TBR between my Kindle and regular books. Doesn't mean I will go on a shopping spur spree between now and the end of summer to buy some books. Because even though I just bought three books the other day doesn't mean I will add more books between my Audible account, my Kindle account, or just going to a bookstore just because. Doesn't mean I'll probably grab some more in the next couple of weeks just to build up because I want to read books and build a physical library. That is actually one of my goals over the next couple of years is read books, decide which ones I really like and I'm gonna keep, and which ones I'm still gonna read, but give away. Because I also saw something which should also be on your radar for all you people who are summer readers and also finding activities that are book ideas is check your local indie bookshops that are surrounding you. I didn't know about this until I popped on Facebook like two days before it was happening. I didn't make it out, but they do this once a month. Is more and more indie bookshops will more than likely once a month since it is warmer months, people are getting out, visiting local bookstores, just wanting to socialize, be outside is the fact of doing book swaps. Yes, you are hearing me correctly. A book swap. I had been hearing about this on social media over the last couple months lately of people doing it to blind book dates as well. I've heard of a lot of book talkers and booktubers talking about doing these like dates with books, they don't know what they're gonna get and reading them. And I find this interesting. The only big name store that has gone with this is Target, which really surprised me, and not Barnes and Noble. I would have expected Barnes and Noble over Target, but okay, that's fine. But getting back to it is book swaps are coming more and more popular, is a way of socializing with people, getting out of your comfort zones, trading books with people, finding new books without spending money, which I think is a great way to save money in this economy. And I wish I got to go to it, but I am hoping to go to this month's. I might be paying this out days before the next one. I don't know when this one is going out, but I just want you to be aware of indie bookshops in your towns or like bordering towns, do fun things. Make sure you are aware of this via Facebook, Instagram, other pages you may follow. They might be posting about these things and telling you, hey, this is happening. Because maybe you want to do a book swap because you're looking for some better book story because your TBR list is getting low and you don't want to spend money at a bookstore or Barnes Noble or Amazon or heaven forbid, go to half-price books, which is very we reasonably priced books, by the way. And this is the best way you can get books. This is a fun way for you to get to know people and like find new genres you never thought she would read, new authors you never thought you would read, or just plainly talking to other book nerds like yourself. I have found new authors with just talking with co-workers who are readers. I have a book recommendation they gave me, and I went and literally bought the book the same day after they recommended it to me, and it's gonna be on my physical TBR for summer, so I'm very excited to read it as well. Get out, enjoy the warm weather, and take a book outside with you and not your phone, unless you're listening to an audiobook and that's different. And take a break from music. I know music is a great thing, and I support music because it's part of what I do as a job, but you can also listen to a good audiobook on a walk or in the car, and that it doesn't always have to be music, it can always be a book from the library app, or if you have Audible or some other audio listening app, it those are great as well. I'm just here to encourage reading. That is why you have me, your lovely podcaster, talking about reading, which is one of her hobbies in recommending something to you so you don't get bored on these hot summer days. And what are some of the books you're looking forward to reading to this summer? Because I am curious. I'm always adding to my collection and wondering what to read. So please tell me some books in the comments that you are reading so I could get some ideas of some books I can read for later this year. Once I get through my fiscal TBR list of sorts, because I'm always looking for a good book, I'm always trying to get out of my comfort zone, even though sometimes it's hard to get out of our lovely comfort zones of books we like, because I am also really trying as well to get out get out of my comfort zone. And I feel like summer is the way to do it because I feel like summer is always the time when reading likes to go up because it's pretty outside, encourages people to read, be outside. So please leave your recommendations or what are some of the reading things you are wanting to accomplish here this year. I would love to know. And I know I say I want to know, but I am always seeing what people are trying to accomplish on social media, and I'm just curious. I always am curious because the analog trend is going up and people are trying to find things to do in this in these hot, humid months. I'm hoping it's reading because reading is a great hobby to have. And if you thought I was done and I was about to wrap up the episode, I'm afraid you're wrong. I took a look at all the websites that I had listed in my notes, went through them because originally, originally I thought, oh, I'm done recording this episode. And then I was thinking, I'm like, wait, I didn't go through some of these websites' book choices, and I looked through about three of the sites I had put down on my list because there was a lot of books. I looked at another fellow book person's website they put together, and it was a very well website put together. Hands down, they had all the time and energy to put it together because I love the organization of it, it was so beautiful. To the New York Times' websites picks and some of the Goodreads picks. I really thought, oh, I'm only gonna look at the Goodreads website when I was looking through the list after deciding to add on to this episode, after doing my spiel of what I've been seeing for summer reading, and I was like, let's go through these lists. And what were some of them on Goodreads that stood out to me the most that I wrote down that I'm gonna mention yesteryear being one of them, which I mentioned on my personal list? I want to read, which will be very exciting to read. I feel like it'll be either a hit or miss book. Hail Mary. Hail Mary is still popular because the movie's been popular, and I think people have seen the movie and are now reading the book. I've heard some stuff about the Hail Mary book. I'm kind of on that edge of do I read it or not read it because I'm not a sci-fi person. So I'm on the fence because of all the stuff I've heard about it, from booktube to other podcasters who have read it. So I'm on the fence about Hail Mary on the good goodreads list. Our perfect storm, I've heard a lot about. I understand why people we meet on vacation is on this list. It just came out on Netflix this year, and I think people are finally getting around to reading it. You got Beach Reed, which is a book by a fellow YouTuber who finally wrote her first book, which I'm excited to get around to read that on my Kindle as well. The Correspondent, that's been a pretty top book to read this year, and people are already getting around and going to read it. I yeah, I'm on that list. I feel like I might read it because I've also heard from fellow YouTubers in the booktube world say it's one of those easy reads, and I always like a good easy read after a hard read. I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way. Of you need a good easy read after you read a really, really hard book. You need something easy to cleanse the palate so you don't go into that phase where you don't want to read. I've been there off and on for the last two years, and it then affects how many books you can get read in a year. So hopefully I don't go back to that and I can hopefully meet my goal. I'm close to actually hitting the goal I hit last year just this summer. It feels wild to say that. What's another one I just want to say? The wedding people. This is also on my Kindle, and I'm probably gonna read that as well. And I didn't write all the ones from Goodreads' website. It's a mile long, theirs is a couple miles long, and I didn't want to write all of them down. And I could write all of them down because they were all good choices, they really were. I am now going to move to the New York Times, which the New York Times is a very trustworthy website, they always Pick good picks for books. They are one of those that do good research. So does Goodreads. Goodreads is uh how how do I word this? Theirs is based off of since the book came out and the rating system of stars and how people have rated it from stars to the writing reviews they write, which usually I I do writing reviews, but lately I haven't really felt like doing writing reviews at the current moment. Just not my forte of sorts. I'm just like uh not feeling it, and I've just been rating it by stars, and I'm just giving more of my rating on my podcast episodes, which you guys should be listening to my book reports. They're very interesting. I really like recording those. But what are some of the interesting ones that the New York Times put? And what did I pick? What did they say that caught my interest? Ken is one of them, K-I-N. I think that will be an interesting book to read. I think that's on my list of books to read. What else? They had yesteryear as well. I think a lot of people are predicting the yesteryear to be the book of the summer, and maybe one other book. I can't remember it off the top of my head. We got Fear and Fury, Days of the Love and Rage, London Falling, The Boundless Deep, The War Within a War. That was interesting sounding on Morrison, which is about Tony Morrison. She's a famous author that could be really good. And they had a pretty short list. The New York Times was a pretty short list of, and I'm not even going through the whole list. Uh there there was just a lot of them, quite a few of them are written down, but it's a lot of them I hadn't heard of, which is This Is Where the Serpent Lives, The Keeper, Transcription, Starship, Strangers, Fear and Fury, Days of Love and Rage, London Falling, The Boundless Deep, The War Within a War, and On Moore's And if I'm Repeating Myself. So their list wasn't as long as Goodreads or another person's website who's a fellow reader, which theirs was goodness gracious, heavenly long. And she went by genre too, of how she organized it. Which, hands down, how much time did you have to put this together? And maybe I should be spending more time putting stuff together like this. Because let's say the more effort you put into things, the more people appreciate it, is what I'm learning. And the more organized and beautiful things look. And that's the same with putting these book lists together for summer. Because the more it appeals, the more likely people are gonna read these books. Because how do I word this? Summer seems to be the months where people want to spend time outside and read because of their emotions are in a happier state of mind, and they have time to read a book, sit down somewhere and just read. In the books she had, I don't want to give her name away, but these were some interesting pics she had. She had June Baby, the lost book of Lancelot. That could be interesting. Artifacts, they all fall in love at the end, the low job, the light club, leave and come back, the mashup, good joy, bad joy, the midnight train. I've been seeing the midnight train popping up everywhere when I've been looking. Yes, I've seen it everywhere. I have been going, it's been quite interesting. I am almost on the bus of wanting to read it. I'm curious to see what it is about. Whistler, that could be interesting. I've seen the shampoo effect everywhere, that's also an interesting one. Take what you can, you'll love it here. The shippers, the missed connection, trope sick, play it again games, a love story. Not that kind of proposal. The airs, it could have been her helpless, the Paris and Heist, Hot Girl, Murder Club, Immersion, Pool House, Ungodly Rich, Habits of the Sea, Our Perfect Storm, Take Me With You, Dolly, all the time, and crash into me. I mean, how much time did she put into this side? Because these are some interesting pics, and the pictures of the books are high quality in the layout of how she put the books, and she had descriptions of all the books. I didn't read the descriptions, but I saw the descriptions and they were really cool. She kind of had a scrapbook feel to it when I was putting this together of making the list. I was like, wow, this has a scrapbook vibe of when she was displaying the pictures of the books, which made it feel like okay, you can do a scrapbook on a website. That's pretty cool. I'm not at that phase yet, which is really cool. And I've I think these are all gonna be good book picks. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. I'm interested in reading, and something else I've also been hearing in the booktube world is you can hear about all these popular books that people should be reading. But I was hearing is read what you want to read. I know I can give a list of books, say these lists just as recommendations, even though some of them I will read, some of them I might not read, but they're just recommendations. It's all up to you of what do you want to read? Do you want to explore new genre or stay in your comfort zone with your favorite authors? I know there's people that like to stay with their favorite authors, I have my favorite, but I've also been exploring new authors lately. I'm very open to that idea, so I don't get bored in reading, I just want to explore. And yes, there's books I am highly interested in, and I'm also in the face of life of I'm catching up on reading. My reading journey got kind of put on a halt while I was in college because of I was doing a lot of academic reading, so I didn't have the time or energy to read fun books until summer, and that was a short period of time as well. I really didn't have time to do any fun reading until I graduated with both my degrees, and I'm glad to finally have the time back and I'm catching up and I'm finding my reading flow and trying to make time almost every day, if possible, to read. Weekends seem to be the time where I can spend almost five hours reading instead of watching stuff. I know people might have some opinions about me sitting and reading for four to five hours, but it's my hobby, it's what I want to do. I know some people might be like, well, I would rather go do this or go do that. That's your hobby. My hobby is reading, and I I'm I'm not gonna judge you for what your hobby is, so please back off on me. And I do have some goals in my head of how much I want to read this summer, and I am hoping to make it or close to, it's not too big of a goal, but I hope I can meet it. And until next time, I will see you yet again, and it will be another fun episode. Bye.