Twenty-five books, chosen and reviewed by the editorial team.
The summer has its way of demanding attention. The heat that can wickedly turn from glorious to unbearable, the people who slip away unannounced for their secret holidays, the children dancing under park sprinklers in their summer vacations. Summer is a season for growth and, therefore, for change. An opportunity to be delighted but perhaps challenged, and, at 1000 Libraries, we believe that there is no better way to achieve this than through the written word.
I, Vincent Phan, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the 1000 Libraries Magazine, and my editorial team, have carefully selected a list of 25 books (15 fiction, 10 non-fiction) to comprise our Summer Reading List of 2026. Every title has been read, loved, and discussed, and now finds its way to you in the form of this list. Whether you are searching for an obsessive page-turner for a beachside afternoon, or a book that might just change your whole outlook on life and beauty, we hope you’ll find it somewhere below.
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
1. Taiwan Travelogue — Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (2024, tr. Lin King)
Why we love it
Forbidden love and a culinary tour across Taiwan in the 1930s – Taiwan Travelogue offers both delight and timely significance. The first-ever International Booker Prize winner to have been translated from Mandarin Chinese, author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, and translator Lin King, artfully explore themes of colonialism, power dynamics, and persisting love. Standing as proof that books about translation can hold real weight and prestige, Taiwan Travelogue is a masterpiece we are proud to lead with.
2. The Book-Lovers’ Retreat — Heidi Swain (2024)
Why we love it
A book that delivers delight is not one to be shunned, and this is exactly why The Book-Lovers’ Retreat has made our list. Summer is, in many ways, all about joy and savouring fleeting moments, and this book is just that. Readers are whisked away on a journey to the Lake District, where three friends have booked a long-anticipated holiday in a beautiful, somewhat isolated cottage. We find that unexpected plans lead to unforeseen endings, and that even the journey in-between is overflowing with friendship, booklovers, and the sweetness of summer romance.
3. The Secret Book Society — Madeline Martin (2025)
Why we love it
You are cordially invited to the Secret Book Society…might be a request you just couldn’t refuse. Madeline Martin’s The Secret Book Society takes us back to 1895 London, a world filled with smog, bustling people, and a clandestine, women-only book club. We chose this title because it shares something in common with our readers and us – the idea that books, and a love for literature, can foster a sense of belonging and purpose in our own lives.
4. The Astral Library — Kate Quinn (2026)
Why we love it
Have you ever wished to disappear inside a book? The Astral Library is for those among us who find books both as oases of escape and pillars of meaning. It has earnt its place on this list by being a somewhat perfect equilibrium between the two halves of this list, exhibiting the coziness of a comfortable read while also daring to ask the larger, profound questions.
5. The Reading List — Sara Nisha Adams (2022)
Why we love it
Chance encounters can often bring about the purest of connections. A widower and a teenage girl, strangers, with nothing in common besides a strange, handwritten list of books left behind in a library. The Reading List embodies what we have always tried to argue: that books can truly change a life. That, more than just stories and tales, they are beacons of connection and empathy. If one book on our list were to touch your heart, we would be glad if it were this one.
6. More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop — Satoshi Yagisawa (tr. Eric Ozawa)
Why we love it
Each book contains its own unique personality and history, as does every gentle character in More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. This translated sequel is the epitome of a comfort read that balances ease with wisdom, and invites you to learn how books always, and will always, bring people together. Our book list was founded on the feel-good, and this work certainly delivers.
7. The Cat Who Saved the Library — Sōsuke Natsukawa (tr. Louise Heal Kawai)
Why we love it
A cat, a young girl with asthma, and a mysterious case of missing books – The Cat Who Saved the Library certainly offers a unique premise. While this Japanese novel is full of whimsy and intrigue, it does not have a shallow surface. We chose this work for its discussion about the importance of books and questioning of what might happen if we stop protecting them. In a world full of book-banning and censorship, readers might need to look to something with a tough spine.
8. The Book of Doors — Gareth Brown (2024)
Why we love it
A dreamy concept made for bibliophiles: a book that can make any door a portal into anywhere the heart desires. The perfect book for those warm, summer evenings where you turn pages as fast as the sun sets slowly. This read is adventurous, a little dark, and pushes back against the stereotype that ‘bookish’ means ‘boring’ – earning its place on our list.
9. The Cartographers — Peng Shepherd (2022)
Why we love it
An old gas station highway map, the dusty back rooms of the New York Public Library, a destroyed reputation – this literary mystery tells us that not everything is as it seems. Whether you have a passion for cartography or simply love a novel that teems with wonder and adventure, The Cartographers might just be your summer read.
10. The Last Chance Library — Freya Sampson (2021)
Why we love it
Our greatest passion is to continue the existence of physical books and to keep libraries as the beating hearts of communities. The Last Chance Library embodies, perhaps better than any other book on this list, our mission. This novel follows shy librarian June Jones on her quest to save her community library, and in some ways, herself, in the quaint English village she has lived all of her life. An overall sentimental and touching journey for readers who know the value of the written word.
11. The Door-to-Door Bookstore — Carsten Henn (tr. Melody Shaw)
Why we love it
Well-loved all over the world, this originally German novel tells a touching story about the unexpected friendship between an elderly bookseller who loses his job, and a nine-year-old girl who topples his routine. The Door-to-Door Bookstore speaks of love, the importance of human connection, and is a gentle reminder that bookshops are a relationship before they are a business.
12. Found in a Bookshop — Stephanie Butland (2024)
Why we love it
Bibliotherapy theorises that books can be used as treatments for people in difficult periods of time. In Found in a Bookshop, Loveday Cardew puts this theory to practice, setting out to quietly repair the emotional scars and isolation following the aftermath of lockdown. More than anything, this book tells readers that a good bookseller is one who listens – an idea that represents us deep in our bones.
13. The Lonely Hearts Book Club — Lucy Gilmore (2023)
Why we love it
Another read boasting an eclectic mix of characters – including a curmudgeonly older man and an empathetic librarian – that re-emphasises the power of the ‘found-family’ story. We’ve chosen this one because it understands the importance of a read that is both comforting in itself and for the reader. After all, aren’t we all sometimes a collection of lonely hearts?
14. Dinner at the Night Library — Hika Harada (2025, tr. Philip Gabriel)
Why we love it
Warm summertime soirées might be made better by a library that opens exclusively after dark, and a band of literary misfits united by their devotion to books. Dinner at the Night Library is another Japanese feel-good fiction in the Morisaki vein, expertly translated by none other than Murakami’s own Philip Gabriel. The last of those humid summer nights may just linger with the memories of this book of nocturnal enchantment, ringing that the best libraries are those with a few secrets of their own.
15. The Summer Book — Tove Jansson (1972, tr. Thomas Teal)
Why we love it
We made one deliberate exception to our ten-year rule, reasoned only by the fact that ‘summer’ would be incomplete without Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. We follow an elderly artist and her young granddaughter as they pass the season on a little Finnish island. This book does not rely on action or intense drama.
Think of it as a soft and gentle Monet, one that is funny, simplistic, and often deeply moving. A book written about summer itself, where the weather becomes almost a character, bearing witness to the story of a child, a grandmother, and the sea.
PART TWO
Non-fiction — histories, lives, and the slow art of living
16. Flâneuse: Women Walk the City — Lauren Elkin (2016)
Why we love it
What do Virginia Woolf, Agnes Varda, and Martha Gellhorn have in common? – They all know the power of a good wander, just like our editorial team members. For years, the flâneur has been associated only with men, usually the creative hommes of Paris, but Elkin challenges such an assumption. Readers are walked through the narrow streets of Paris, then New York, Venice, Tokyo, and London, following the meandering footsteps of some of history’s most influential women.
We start our non-fiction list here because it demonstrates to the reader how we can move through summer – perhaps a little haphazardly, but undoubtedly with our eyes wide open.
17. Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life — Beth Kempton (2018)
Why we love it
A book praised for being one of the clearest and most informed English explanations of wabi-sabi, Beth Kempton does a marvellous job of explaining and understanding the beauty of the imperfect, the ephemeral, and the unfinished. Kempton writes with tact and experience, having both lived and studied in Japan, and her authenticity glows.
A founder favourite, with carefully chosen words rather than typical wellness ‘gloss’, this title has become a philosophical foundation for a journey into slow living. What better way to appreciate the beauty of the transient than by watching the passing of the season?
18. The Book of Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment — Héctor García & Francesc Miralles (2019)
Why we love it
Every moment that we experience, whether good or bad, will happen only once. We must therefore remind ourselves to notice and savour the time that passes, and live unapologetically in the now. García and Miralles teach us that ichigo ichie is about presence. Finding a certain mindfulness in our attention to fleetingness. We selected it as a natural companion to Wabi Sabi, where one teaches appreciation and acceptance; this one teaches attention.
19. The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living — Meik Wiking (2016)
Why we love it
This is the book that turned hygge international, ensuring that the Danish art of cosiness and conviviality extended beyond borders. The Little Book of Hygge is written by none other than the head of Copenhagen’s Happiness Research Institute, an individual with arguably unmatched personal and professional experience on all things hygge.
Summers are about togetherness, warmth, slow evenings, and long conversations that teeter into the morning. This title made the list as the Nordic counterpoint to the other Japanese philosophies. Whilst they might differ in climate, they find commonality in values, both gravitating towards feelings of warmth, appreciation, and presence.
20. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down — Haemin Sunim (2017)
Why we love it
The world might move quickly, but we don’t have to. At least, that’s the argument of this standout slow-living book by Haemin Sunim. Simple, purposeful, and full of the lived wisdom of a real Korean-born Zen Buddhist monk, this book is the gentle but comprehensive underpinning of the slow-living philosophy we are built upon. A founder favourite, we believe that this read might just shift how you’ll see and spend those never-ending summer afternoons.
21. A Bookshop of One’s Own: How a Group of Women Set Out to Change the World — Jane Cholmeley (2024)
Why we love it
Sometimes the most wonderful and surprising of stories end up being the true ones. This book recounts the captivating history of feminist bookshop Silver Moon, which somehow persisted for two decades on London’s Charing Cross Road – even in the Britain of Margaret Thatcher. A Bookshop of One’s Own speaks on the importance of making space for women, reminding us that bookselling is activism, finding strength continually in people and perseverance.
22. Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop — Alba Donati (tr. Elena Pala, 2022)
Why we love it
Rolling hills, picturesque hues, and watercolour sunsets – opening a tiny bookshop in a little town in Tuscany certainly seems the dream. In her memoir, translated to English by Elena Pala, Alba Donati tells us of her unlikely journey in opening a ‘bookshop on the hill’ in a city of less than 200 inhabitants.
Economic struggles are paired with stubborn hope, and one woman’s passion for the power of books. We chose this book because of its complete dedication to every reader’s summer daydream, enhanced, of course, by the fact that it is entirely true.
23. I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life — Anne Bogel (2018)
Why we love it
Isn’t there something beautiful about an author who understands our bookish obsessions? I’d Rather Be Reading is a compilation of short, warm essays that each explore an element of literature or the reading experience. More than anything, we included it for the joy of recognition, our fellow bibliophiles being seen, understood, and perhaps even inspired, with every turn of the page.
24. Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers — Emma Smith (2022)
Why we love it
An erudite, yet surprisingly accessible, recent history of the physical book. Emma Smith dives in far deeper than inky words on a page, and instead gives us delicious insight into books as physical objects. The pages are scattered with the when, why, and how that has led to where books are today. We have chosen this book for both its ability to satiate and pique our curiosity, and for its shared affliction for all things book-related.
25. The Library: A Fragile History — Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen (2021)
Why we love it
Papyrus, leather, and clay tablets. Kings, traders, and princes. The history of libraries is expansive and full of adventure, ambition, and sometimes heartbreak. This book is a sweeping account of all the various fragile histories of the world’s archives and allows readers an intimate insight into how all came to be.
The library, an institution that we might sometimes take for granted, has long been a symbol of progress, education, and resistance, and is the reason for which we exist today. It seems only fitting and natural to close this list on a book that gives our whole project its long, historical shadow.
Every Summer, no matter how deeply we wish it not to, must end. The days will shorten, the weather will cool, and a new season will settle into the grooves of the city. Yet sometimes, with the help of a new perspective, or the sincere memories of a good book, we might find some beauty in the endings.
We are bound together by our love for the literary, our insatiable curiosity, and our desire to slow down. While our world may feel sparse on community, our hope is not lost. Even knowing that so many of us are still passionate about books and reading, which have long since been symbols of togetherness and change, symbolises that the connection is persisting. So, here is to a long summer filled with reading, community, and a dedication to living in the present moment.
We hope these books travel with you through the rest of the season.
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Vincent Phan
Vincent is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 1000 Libraries Magazine. He is a Paris-born ex-corporate turned bookseller and philosopher, on a global mission to spread the joy of physical books in our age of digital technology.
