20 Great Books for Your Summer Reading List

We just returned from a family trip down to Lake Keowee in South Carolina. After such a challenging year of work and school, it was the perfect getaway to kick off summer break for the kids and spend lots of time in the water & sunshine!

Now that we’re back home, I wanted to compile my vacation book stack for you, as well as past books I have read & loved. These are mostly novels that have some sort of feel-good ending. Feel free to bookmark this post as a quick resource for your next good book, and if you want to pass it along to fellow book-loving friends I’d love that!

To start, here are the books I just read & loved on our summer vacation:

• Gilead | A classic & winner of the Pulitzer Prize
• Simply Tuesday | My only non-fiction choice, written by Emily Freeman when she was in a similar season of life as I’m in right now. It’s all about small-moment living in a fast paced world. I read a chapter every couple of days to think about, and it’s been like a balm for my soul.
• The Midnight Library |I absolutely loved this imaginative take on regrets and second chances. The story is one that sticks with you and makes you think, similar to this novel from years ago.
• Anxious People | Such a smart, funny story about a bank robbery, a hostage situation and so much more. Lots of twists and turns – and clever insights into the human heart – from the author of A Man Called Ove (one that Zach and I both loved.)
• Code Name Helene | Based on the thrilling true story of Nancy Wake, a WWII socialite spy, this historical fiction is full of her daring, fierce resistance in occupied France.
• Rules of Civility | A set of glittering characters fall in love and climb the social ladder of 1930s Manhattan.

For more summer reading ideas, here are some of my top picks from years past…

• Educated: A Memoir
• Evvie Drake Starts Over
• Where the Crawdads Sing
• Hannah Coulter
• Christy
• The Invention of Wings
• The Huntress
• Circe
• Rise & Shine
• Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
• Where’d You Go Bernadette?

And for those of you who are curious, here is what I’m reading next: this, this & this!

You can find all of these books linked in my Amazon Shop for easy reference. I’d love to hear if you have a favorite book you’ve read recently!