What to Read This Summer | The New Yorker Daily

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » This summer, in proper New Yorker fashion, our writers are lugging giant books to the beach—but only the ones worth the extra weight. See which mega-reads get their stamp of approval below. Plus: • A writer investigates her great-grandparents’ criminal past • The growing legend of baseball’s Big Dumper • Still thinking about “Love Island USA”? Us, too Illustration by Seungwhan Kim Sometimes heavy lifting is good for you. This summer, we’ve asked some of the magazine’s writers to recommend their favorite mega-reads—big, sprawling novels, biographies, and works of history that will keep you absorbed and entertained through the end of the season. We hope that you have a big enough tote bag. Below are a few bite-size versions of their suggestions. For more, check out the full list. Hua Hsu on the Hickman Saga “A couple of years ago, I was at my local comic shop with my kid, when I thought it might be ‘fun’ to see what the X-Men were up to. But comics—as with many forms of once juvenile entertainment—are no longer for the casuals. Reading ‘House of X’ and ‘Powers of X,’ critically acclaimed books by the writer Jonathan Hickman, I was unprepared for how much the Marvel universe—and comic storytelling—had evolved in the thirty or so years since I’d last checked in.” Jia Tolentino on “The Cazalet Chronicles” “My best pitch for ‘The Cazalet Chronicles’: they’re a cross between Laurie Colwin and Elena Ferrante, with more than a bit of the Evan S. Connell masterpiece ‘Mrs. Bridge.’ Read these books before they get the inevitable makeover and reissue that they’re due.” Katy Waldman on “The Deptford Trilogy” “I read these books when I was a teen-ager and was floored by their intensity and grandeur. Rereading them now, drowning in text—and specifically in voiceless text, with no human behind it—I love their talkiness. [Robertson] Davies’s characters are mesmerizing speakers, who live to spar, lecture, and lie. They’re old-fashioned and pretentious and peevish, and they hold forth about everything from theatre to polyamory to the nature of the Devil.” Read the full list Every week, The New Yorker’s editors and critics recommend the most captivating, notable, brilliant, surprising new books they’ve read in 2025 so far. And see what else staff around the newsroom are reading. Tight on time? Indulge in our Flash Fiction series of very short stories for summer. The latest is a recently discovered work by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Editor’s Pick Personal History What I Inherited from My Criminal Great-Grandparents In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure. By Jessica Winter More from The New Yorker On Television The Trophy Abs and Soul Ties of “Love Island USA” The Peacock reality show, filmed in Fiji, offers a parallel America in which nearly naked contestants attempt to pair up and the audience votes on the winning couple. By Vinson Cunningham The Sporting Scene Bottoms Up for the Big Dumper Cal Raleigh, of the Seattle Mariners, and of the eponymous big butt, has been drawing a lot of attention lately—but he deserves even more. By Louisa Thomas Persons of Interest Can Dave Hurwitz Save Classical Recording? An unlikely YouTube star surveys the spoils of an overflowing but precarious industry. By David Denby Fiction “The Chartreuse” She could feel the mirror shining in her dark bedroom closet. Waiting for the offering. By Mona Awad In Case You Missed It A Reporter at Large Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War? With global conflicts increasingly shaped by drones and A.I., the American military risks losing its dominance. By Dexter Filkins The Weekend Essay How to Save a Dog For nearly a year, a motley crew scoured New Orleans for a shaggy white mutt named Scrim. By David W. Brown Mini Crossword Try a Mini Puzzle Fee for a car commuter, perhaps: four letters. By Mollie Cowger

Cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan “He’s gone off on a jazzy riff before, but never for so long.” See more cartoons

P.S. Apollo 11 landed on the lunar surface on this day in 1969. Writers for The New Yorker visited parties, both planned and unplanned, that popped up as Manhattanites prepared to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon.

Today’s newsletter was written by Caroline Mimbs Nyce.