My Summer 2026 TBR

What better way to enjoy the summer than with the literary fires of hell in addition to the real ones outside! Mostly, I’ve been putting this off for far too long. I started reading it months ago and just haven’t kept up with the work of reading a book and then making notes on it before going on to the next one.

What it’s all about: Paradise Lost is John Milton’s epic poetic retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve from Eden, following Satan from the point of his own fall from Heaven through his journey to Eden and so on. Incredible language, Milton wanted you to know how much more he’s read than you, is Satan the hero? Who knows, great classic read.

When I think of summer, I think of the misery of Florida. So of course, Florida turned into a sci-fi hellscape is a great way to bask in the summer vibes. Saw the movie when it came and just haven’t gotten around to the book. Had a great time with his City of Saints and Madmen looking forward to more.

What it’s all about: A team of scientists from different fields venture into the mysterious ‘Area X,’ where those who enter don’t return and the nature they find around them is not like anything they’ve known before. Tense, nightmarish, and engrossing.

Something about the classical world feels distinctly in line with the feeling of summer, probably the feeling of the old school pleasant Mediterranean climate bleeding into it all. Anyway, I was finally inspired to pick this one up as a bit of research for my own writing and I’m looking forward to reading it for the first time.

What it’s all about: Coming down to us from around 650 BC in Ancient Greece, The Iliad is an epic poem that tells the tale of the end of the Trojan war, from the grand scale of battle to personal struggles, from gods to mortals, following the hero Achilles and a host of other well known figures of Greek myth and legend.

Sunny rural Spain fits right in next to the Ancient Greek mood (maybe a stretch, let me have it)! So it’s a great time to work through this brick of comedy and tragedy and confusion. (And also I just have too many really long books going right now and I’d like to put some time into this one to get it off my plate sooner, but it does fit the summer vibe too!)

What it’s all about: Widely considered the first modern novel, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha follows the titular man who has clearly gone insane from reading too many tales of chivalry and thus decides that he must take up the mantle of those legendary knights and keep knight-errantry alive and well in the Spanish countryside where he wanders with his squire, the farmer Sancho Panza. Together they find quite a collection of adventures, all of which Quixote twists and turns in his mind to fit into his idea of a purely romantic world full of sorcerers and giants that need a hero to defeat them.

This is one of those books that I heard described once and thought ‘ah I have to read that’ and did not store in my mind the actual reason why. Regardless, summer and plague go hand in hand for me, this will be a great read while I am lying on the floor in the heat wishing for the plague to claim me.

What it’s all about: Described as similar in tone to Kafka, this novel is concerned with the helplessness of its characters in the face of a plague outbreak in Colonial Algeria in the 1940s. Based on historical events from the preceding century. Not as popular today as Camus’s The Stranger but still considered a classic of existentialism and a look into the development of his ideas beyond that earliest work.

I read this for a class in college and I recall not liking it very much, but for at least the last six months I keep thinking about reading it again. Another one with a miserable summer sort of vibe.

What it’s all about: 1899 novella following the sailor Charles Marlow on a colonial mission into Africa, inspired by Conrad’s own experiences in much the same work. A critique of the imperial project, examines the colonialists’ relationship with native peoples and the terror of Marlow’s experience in this hostile, foreign place.

Last but certainly not least, nothing on this list is more summer than One Piece. I’ve been reading this on and off for years now, chipping away at its over 1000 chapters. This summer, I’ll pick this up anytime I want to try to feel the long gone joy of summer vacation again instead of just the miserable heat. I’ve got volume 60 up next.

What it’s all about: In this beloved epic shounen manga, started in 1997 and still ongoing, our hero, Monkey D. Luffy, decides that he’s going to become the kind of the pirates and sets out from home to do just that. He sets sail across a vibrant and richly-imagined ocean world, hopping from island to island, gathering up a crew of trusted friends and picking fights with oppressors, all in search of the ultimate pirate treasure: the One Piece.