I’ve generally been avoiding reading lists lately, except for this one. I love everything about summer, including thinking about what I want to read. Cathy’s 20 Books of Summer challenge is simple — it’s just a list of 20 books we plan to read over the next three months. This is coming in a bit late but I was waiting on some summer book club announcements.
My list is a mix of book club books, ARCs, books I own, and books I want to read for challenges. It’s also a mix of fiction, nonfiction, classics, historical fiction, romance, and science fiction. I try to mix in books of different lengths and difficulty levels – it is summer, after all.
I’m cheating a little. You’ll see I’ve got two books I’m already reading but expect to finish in June. And I’ve listed 22 books, not 20, so two of these can be alternates.
Currently Reading:
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar
Advanced Reading Copies:
- A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (publishes July 13, 2021)
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (publishes July 20, 2021)
- Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (publishes September 7, 2021)
Book club:
- Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
- People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
- The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Books for Challenges:
- Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
- Braving It by James Campbell
- Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
On the Library Hold List:
- Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
- Venetia by Georgette Heyer
- Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
- The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
- Marlena by Julie Buntin
Books I Own:
- A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
- The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
- Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones
- Thin Girls by Diana Clarke
- Babylon’s Ashes by James S. A. Corey
- The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
Those are my 20 books of summer! Thanks to Cathy for hosting this challenge every year. Have you read any of these? What’s on your summer reading list?
