The trouble with choosing holiday books is that we ask rather a lot of them. You want them to be smart and substantial, but also light and readable. They need to be page-turning enough to compete with the lure of a swim, but also thought-provoking enough to not be immediately forgotten. Ideally they would also be funny, and moving, and brimming with characters you would like to spend all your time with.
Luckily, 2026 has delivered. This summer’s best new books range from addictive debuts to big-name literary fiction from the likes of Ann Patchett, Maggie O’Farrell , Elizabeth Strout and Douglas Stuart , as well as clever thrillers, bittersweet memoirs and non-fiction as gripping as any beach read.
Here’s our pick of the 14 which are very much worth your precious suitcase space…
Whistler by Ann Patchett
Whistler by Ann Patchett
This Women’s Prize -winning author rarely puts a foot wrong, and her latest is exactly the kind of effortless storytelling to savour over a summer weekend. It opens with Daphne running into the stepfather who vanished from her life when she was still a child, and unspools into a luminous story of family, memory, and the people who change us.
Bloomsbury, £20
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Yesteryear is 2026’s biggest debut
As the year’s most talked-about debut – soon to be adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway – this novel is practically tailor-made for sunlounger reading. It centres on Natalie, who has built a perfect tradwife empire online, then wakes in 1805 and finds the fantasy horribly real.
Fourth Estate, £16.99
Kin by Tayari Jones
Kin is one of those novels to get lost in
In 1950s Louisiana, childhood friends Vernice and Annie grow up motherless but inseparable, until the futures they each long for begin to pull them in different directions. This rich and sweeping story from the author of An American Marriage is one of those novels to get lost in.
Oneworld Publications, £18.99
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
This is the sort of slim summer read that floors you
Elizabeth Strout’s first standalone novel in more than a decade introduces Artie Dam, a father and lonely history teacher whose world is upended by a long-buried secret. Tender, wise and just 200 pages, this is the sort of slim summer read that floors you.
Viking, £18.99
John of John by Douglas Stuart
John of John by Douglas Stuart
Out of money and adrift after art school, Cal takes the ferry back to the Isle of Harris, where his strict father and fierce grandmother are waiting. The Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain writes with piercing tenderness about family, faith, sexuality and the places that make us.
Picador, £20
Land by Maggie O’Farrell
Land is inspired by the author’s great-great-grandfather
Inspired by the author’s own family history, this novel transports us to famine-scarred Ireland in 1865, where a cartographer’s son must complete his father’s work without attracting British suspicion. Atmospheric and deeply immersive, you can always rely on O’Farrell for stories to sink into.
Tinder Press, £25
Hooked by Asako Yuzuki
Hooked by Asako Yuzuki
From the author of the hit novel Butter comes another compulsively readable and deliciously strange novel of food, obsession and loneliness. It centres on Eriko, a high-flying corporate worker, who becomes fixated by a chaotic homemaking blogger called Shōko.
Fourth Estate, £14.99
The Persian by David McCloskey
The Persian by David McCloskey
Finding a thriller that is as smart as it is page-turning usually proves a challenge, but the latest from The Rest is Classified podcaster McCloskey has both elements in spades. It follows a Persian Jewish dentist who, dreaming of a new life in California, agrees to spy for Mossad in Iran in order to help fund the move. What could go wrong?
Swift Press, £20
Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
Nonesuch is clever, beguiling and enormous fun
This genre-mashing delight begins in London in the summer of 1939, where a chance encounter draws a young woman working in finance into a time-bending adventure involving television, spirits, Nazi planes and a fascist assassin. Clever, beguiling and enormous fun.
Faber, £20
The Barbecue at No 9 by Jennie Godfrey
The Barbecue at No.9 by Jennie Godfrey
It’s the summer of 1985 and the residents of Delmont Close are gathering for a Live Aid barbecue – but behind the bunting and burgers, old secrets are beginning to surface. From the author of The List of Suspicious Things , here is a mystery that is both warm and nostalgic.
Hutchinson Heinemann, £16.99
Leaving Home by Mark Haddon
Leaving Home is a bittersweet, engrossing read about finding your own way
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author turns to memoir with this darkly funny and admirably honest account of growing up in a loveless provincial home, where he was raised by a father who designed abattoirs and a mother who poured all her devotion into keeping house. It is a bittersweet,…
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