Welcome to the second installment of Book Flights!
If you’re new here, the premise is simple: I love wine, and one of my favorite ways to experience it is in flights, three or four pours arranged around a theme, each one a different expression of the same idea. Books work the same way. A theme is most interesting when you can see it from multiple angles, and that’s what these quarterly posts do.
Summer 2026 has been a sharper season to read than I expected. The country just turned 250, and the season’s best books all turned out to be pressure-testing the same thing: the self.
Let’s explore that theme through four flights.
Want to unlock this full article, get access to paid-only posts, and more? Upgrade your subscription for less than $1/month! It’s cheaper than a coffee run (and a lot more fun!)
There’s a vein of dread underlying summer fiction this year, and it isn’t supernatural. Instead, it’s the dread of letting someone new into your inner world.
3 novels came out this summer with a similar underlying premise: an outsider slips through the door, charms the household, and the cracks that were already there start to split…
A note on links: I’m an advocate for library books, but I also love a good hardcover. If you want to support indie bookstores and my work, consider using the affiliate links in this post. Thank you!
Steven Hammer is a Brooklyn novelist whose star has faded and whose marriage is fraying. Then Astrid arrives. She’s a 24-year-old Norwegian aspiring writer who reveres his neglected books. What begins as a flattered infatuation, however, ends in a headline-grabbing trial that makes them both famous. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: Sleek, mean, unmistakably Brooklyn. The literary thriller as midlife exposé.
Caroline Lash arrives in a coastal Massachusetts town for a writer’s residency and falls for Van, the kayak guy at the center of a group who has been friends since childhood. They welcome her with open arms, until one of them turns out to be pregnant. The seams of the whole arrangement come apart in the most public way possible. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: Frothy, dishy, Updike-ian. The beach reader with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue.
Two women at a Michigan country club circle the same man, the summer nanny one of them hired. Danika wants the status he brings. Augie already knows him from a one-night stand she’d rather forget. As they orbit him, an accident the town buried 12 years ago works its way back to the surface. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: Soapy, twisty, sharper than it looks. The country-club scandal with a cold case underneath.
Tom Ripley sails to Italy on a wealthy man’s dime to retrieve the man’s errant son. Within weeks, the line between Tom and the other man begins to blur. The original outsider novel, this is the one every book in this flight is in conversation with, whether it knows it or not. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: 1955 vintage. Cool, clinical, charming in the way only sociopaths can be. The chill in a too-cold pour.
One of the most striking trends I noticed this summer was a group of books that center around the idea of the life unlived. This is one of my favorite topics to sit and think about, albeit with a good glass of wine for company.
These books run the gamut from gut-wrenching speculative fiction to a Reese's Book Club romance with a time travel twist. What they share is one of the most central yet uncomfortable questions we can ask ourselves: what about the versions of me that I didn’t become?
In the world of Sublimation, the act of immigrating literally splits you in two. One instance crosses the border, and the other instance stays behind. Soyoung left Korea at ten and became Rose in America. Decades later, her Korean instance plans to steal back her life…and her body. I would compare this book to the show Severance, but much more devastating because it centers around the question every immigrant asks themselves. (book / audiobook)
PS: I liked this book so much I did a live discussion about it with Chantel Grant. You can watch that here!
Tasting Notes: Philosophical and mind-bending. This debut has been all over Most Anticipated lists for good reason.
Alex and Ana disappeared together in the Palm Springs desert at age 6. The official story is that they were abducted by aliens. Now a Signal is pulsing from the edge of the solar system, the world is unraveling, and Alex needs to find out which version of his childhood is the true one. Much more than sci-fi, this is a novel about memory, fame, and how long we have to tell ourselves a story before it becomes the truth. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: Tender, propulsive, sneakily literary. Finding friendship at the end of the world.
Joey is 32 and is about to make partner at her LA law firm. The only catch? She’s absolutely miserable. After a life-changing dinner party, she wakes up as her 18-year-old self and has a chance to do it all over again. Like Into the Blue, this is technically a romance, but scaffolded onto a story that primarily asks what it feels like to live while knowing your future. Messier is a Reese’s LitUp Fellow, and makes her impressive literary debut with Every Version of You. (book / audiobook)
Tasting Notes: Bingeable, bittersweet, smart. A romance with a philosophical soul.
A man in 1912 hears a mysterious violin playing in the Canadian forest. A novelist on a moon colony in 2401 wonders if she is real. A simulation hypothesis runs underneath the whole thing. Mandel writes about time travel, love, and how we define the self. In true Mandel fashion, it’s nearly impossible to describe this book without giving spoilers. (book / audiobook)PS: This is one of my favorite books of all time.
Tasting Notes: 2022 vintage. Spare, lit from within, will absolutely wreck you in the last twenty pages.
The next flight is the one I’m most excited about. With Meta Glasses, AI-generated content, and influencers “redefining” their complicated images before our eyes, I couldn’t help but notice just how many books out this summer deal with the theme of watching itself. Paid subscribers, read on!
If you put just one book on hold from this whole post, make it the one that sounded like it was written just for you. Then, pull up one of the cellar picks while you wait, because library hold times are what they are, and grounding the read in a bit of context will give you an even more enjoyable experience once your loan finally starts.
Fall 2026 is already taking shape... I can’t wait to see what the cellars cough up this autumn.
What patterns are you noticing in the books you’re picking up? Which flight are you reaching for first? Tell me in the comments.
Read next…
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.