Sno-Isle Readers Recommend the Best Books of Summer 2026 - Part 1Like this list

28 items

• The Calamity Club

  Stockett, Kathryn,

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  A bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what's rightfully theirs—and the power of friendship to change everything.

• Mad Mabel

  Hepworth, Sally,

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  After a neighbor's death, a fiercely independent 81-year-old woman with a long-buried criminal past investigates the mystery before her own secrets are exposed.

• Japanese Gothic

  Baker, Kylie Lee,

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  A lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, following two people living centuries apart who discover a door between their worlds.

• A Far-flung Life

  a Novel

  Stedman, M. L.,

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  A magnificent and spectacularly moving novel about family secrets that must never be revealed, and what the heart can endure for the sake of love.

• Daughters of the Sun and Moon

  a Novel

  See, Lisa,

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  The story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive and, despite the odds, thrive, in the turmoil of post–Civil War Los Angeles.

• Whistler

  Patchett, Ann

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  A moving, luminous novel about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.

• A Guardian and a Thief

  Majumdar, Megha,

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  A kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.

• This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

  Andrews, Ilona,

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  After being transported into the world of her favorite fantasy novel, a woman uses her knowledge of its plot to navigate court politics, magic, and looming conflict. As she grows closer to the story's characters, she risks changing fate itself in an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The MASH Up

  a Novel

  Meyers, Laura Marie,

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  Ruby Wynne is a staunch rule-follower who lives by the numbers. So when a surprising breakup on her thirty-fifth birthday ruins all her well-laid plans, Ruby makes an unexpected wish...only to wake up inside a M.A.S.H. game from seventh grade.

• Wild Dark Shore

  McConaghy, Charlotte,

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  Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salt family is now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

• Lives of Bitter Rain

  Tchaikovsky, Adrian, 1972-

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  City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring 'Perfection' and 'Correctness' to an imperfect world. But before these ruthless Tyrant Philosophers send in their legions, they despatch Outreach – the rain before the storm.

• Dust Spells

  Lynn, Andrea

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  She thought a dust storm was getting in the way of her dreams, but there are storms more deadly than dust.

• Better Living Through Birding

  Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World

  Cooper, Christian,

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  Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up.

• The Girls in the Stilt House

  A Novel

  Mustian, Kelly

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  Set in 1920s Mississippi, this Southern novel weaves a beautiful and harrowing story of two teenage girls cast in an unlikely partnership through murder.

• World War Z

  An Oral History of the Zombie War

  Brooks, Max

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  Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

• The Song of Achilles

  Miller, Madeline

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  Patroclus, an awkward young prince, follows Achilles into war, not knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• When Breath Becomes Air

  Kalanithi, Paul,

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  This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question: What makes a life worth living?

• After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine. 1

  Liu Gou Hua,

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  A history professor dismisses a sensational thesis as fiction, only to wake up inside its story as the infamous prince destined to imprison a legendary general. To survive and rewrite history, he must earn the trust of the very man fated to seek…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Dog's Courage

  a Dog's Way Home Novel

  Cameron, W. Bruce,

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  More than a fast-paced adventure, more than a devoted dog's struggle to survive, this is a story asking that we believe in our dogs as much as they believe in us.

• Remarkably Bright Creatures

  a Novel

  Van Pelt, Shelby,

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  A luminous novel about a widow's unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium--and the truths she finally uncovers about her son's disappearance 30 years ago.