Hi, {{first_name | friend}}!
Welcome back to Worth the Read! Can you believe it’s already July? No, that’s not rhetorical. I’m actually asking if you can believe it, because I certainly can’t. Every year seems to zip by faster, and 2026 is moving at a record-breaking pace.
But while turning the calendar page might send me into an existential tailspin, putting together my monthly list of the best books calms me right down. If you didn’t already know, at the beginning of every month, I curate a list of the best and buzziest books coming out. To do this, I scour every bookish corner of the internet to see what readers are excited about, what’s earning the highest praise, and who might be getting overlooked. I even make private guesses about which books the celebrity book clubs will choose (and sometimes I’m right).
And look, I'm not going to lie: some months are easier than others. (Spoiler alert: September is overwhelming, and December is a quiet nightmare.) The summer months are always a delight, though, because they favor the juicier reads. Whereas fall is about the serious, big books, summer is about poolside thrillers, hot romances, and feel-good fiction that long, sunny days demand.
So, without further ado, here are the six books coming out this month that I’m most excited to read. (And I’ve actually already read one of them.) From Colson Whitehead’s return to a Palm Springs romance and a genuinely gasp-inducing thriller, I think there’s something here for every reader. And if none of my six picks strike your fancy, good news: there are plenty more in the full list waiting for you at the bottom of this email.
The Top 6 July Releases I Can’t Wait to Read
Country People by Daniel Mason
Literary Fiction | Out 7/7
Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason’s 2023 bestseller, North Woods, is a dazzling novel about one New England house and the centuries of inhabitants it shelters. It’s a kaleidoscopic view of human history and the natural world, and it’ll seriously make you want to set up camp in some Northeastern woods.
So, I’m psyched to head back to New England—and back into the small towns and woods—with Mason in Country People. His upcoming novel follows a family of academics as they spend a year at a small Vermont college, where they encounter everything from colorful characters and local legends to the rugged beauty of the landscape. I’m going to be so honest, though: the thing that really won me over was learning there’s a very prominent pooch in this story. Great writing and a new fictional dog to coo over? Sold.