From dynamite debuts to must-read memoirs and magical children’s fiction, here’s our selection of this year’s hottest holiday reads

70 brilliant books for the summer

Leading authors Mark Haddon, Samantha Harvey, Zadie Smith select their favourites

Justine Jordan, David Shariatmadari, Imogen Russell Williams and Guardian staff 

Sat 13 Jun 2026

Fiction

Transcription

Ben Lerner

A middle-aged writer returns to his college townto record the final interview with his 90-year-old intellectual mentor. But he’s broken his phone, and doesn’t seem able to confess that it’s not recording … this anxiety dream of a beginning leads us into a series of sharp insights into family, memory, inheritance and storytelling – all that it means to be human, and how smartphones are changing our sense of the world at every level.

Books

What to read this summer by Mark Haddon, Samantha Harvey, Zadie Smith and more

Leading authors including Sarah Waters, William Dalrymple, Bernardine Evaristo and Anne Enright reveal their perfect holiday reading

Tahmima Anam, William Boyd, Jonathan Coe, William Dalrymple, Joe Dunthorne, Anne Enright, Virginia Evans, Bernardine Evaristo, Stephen Grosz, Mark Haddon, Luke Kennard, Marian Keyes, Olivia Laing, Sarah Moss,Gary Shteyngart, Zadie Smith, Nina Stibbe and Sarah Waters

Sat 13 Jun 2026 09.00 BST

Zadie Smith
Margaret Busby’s Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century is the record of one woman’s lifelong passion for the literature and life of Africa and its diaspora, wherever she finds it. A beautiful collection. The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while is Black Bag by Luke Kennard.