Books to Bring on Vacation

By Hannah JocelynJune 17, 2026Illustration by Greg ClarkeSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyThere’s a lot to look forward to on this summer’s reading list: Rachel Aviv on the mother-daughter dynamic, the return of Colson Whitehead’s great protagonist Ray Carney, the perennial vogue of French theory, and more. I sat down with two of our books editors, Namara Smith and Victoria Uren, to discuss the most exciting upcoming publications. Our conversation has been edited and condensed. Which books are you bringing with you on vacation this summer, for those days off when you can really savor them? I’m taking Andrew Sean Greer’s “Villa Coco,” for the focaccia-in-Tuscany of it all. Victoria [chewing thoughtfully on a croissant]: I’m certainly pro-bread. But I’d take “Dooneen,” by Keith Ridgway. He published a beautiful story in The New Yorker a few years ago, and the new book, set in a bizarro Dublin, looks strange and thrilling. And, because you always need two, I’d also bring Ann Patchett’s new novel, “Whistler.” I’ve loved this essay she wrote about her friend the writer Lucy Grealy for a long time, but I only just read what I think might be my favorite of her books, “Commonwealth.” Victoria: So good, so devastating. I imagine her new one, about a woman reconnecting with her long-lost stepfather, will be similarly absorbing. Namara: During a heat wave last summer, I spent a weekend in front of my air-conditioner reading “Sag Harbor,” by Colson Whitehead, a coming-of-age story set in 1985. That might be the perfect summer-in-New-York novel. This year, I want to catch up on Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy, because the final book, “Cool Machine,” is out in July. And, for my second, Deborah Levy’s new novel, “My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein,” which came out last week, will probably find its way onto my e-reader at some point. Here is where I have to confess that I’ve never read Gertrude Stein, but I have read a lot of Deborah Levy—she’s delightful. Victoria: Yes, Deborah Levy—well-known beach-read producer. Namara: Her best book, from a beach-read perspective, is her novel “Hot Milk,” about a mother and daughter on vacation in Spain. It’s one of the novels where a lot happens under the surface—literally, the daughter gets stung by a poisonous jellyfish when she enters the ocean. While we’re confessing things, I will say that I am curious about “Big Little Truths,” Liane Moriarty’s follow-up to “Big Little Lies.” It’s not out until August 25th, but might it be a contender for Book of the Summer? Namara: I think the most discussed book this summer is going to be Rachel Cusk’s “Life of M,” although it’s also not coming out until August 25th. It’s about the relationship between an actress and a writer, and about celebrity, and spectacle, and femininity; it sort of seems like Cusk’s version of Catherine Lacey’s “Biography of X,” which is about a famous artist and her biographer. Victoria: I wonder about Haili Blassingame’s début novel, “They All Fall in Love at the End,” which just came out and which I think has a shot at being front-of-the-bookstore-level popular. It’s certainly about a popular topic: nonmonogamous relationships. As books editors at this magazine, you care about a good turn of phrase. Which books are you excited about, on a sentence level? For me, it’s “Dèy,” by Edwidge Danticat, also coming August 25th—her first novel in a decade. Danticat’s sentences are amazing. Namara: I’ve been savoring Erin Maglaque’s book “Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body,” which came out this week. She’s a really good historian, and a terrific stylist who writes with vivid, pointillistic detail about breast-feeding, infant care, sleeping, sex and pregnancy, birth—all that stuff that doesn’t usually make it into the historical record. What is the most New Yorker-y recommendation of the season? Victoria: There’s a book coming out on July 21st called “The Frenchmen: Or, My Life in Theory,” by a former New Yorker editor named Emily Eakin. I have never met Eakin, but I feel a strong affinity with her, because I, too, once shared the obsession at the heart of this book. It’s a memoir about being a college student in the eighties, when works by thinkers like Barthes, Derrida, Paul de Man were in fashion in America. This scenario has repeated itself many times, including in my dorm room a few decades later. I’m counting on Eakin to indulge my nostalgia. Anyway, I have to say there are fewer Lacanians or reformed Lacanians skulking around our office than I expected—but I still think people around these parts will enjoy this book. Namara: Rachel Aviv’s new book, “You Won’t Get Free of It,” is out on July 7th. It’s composed largely of her brilliant, almost painfully intimate essays, originally published in The New Yorker, about the fraught dynamics between mothers and daughters. Victoria: A beach read for someone who wants to have a very introspective, potentially destabilizing vacation

Books to Bring on Vacation

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