Vogue's 37 Best Beach Reads for Summer 2025

Key facts

• List includes 37 books curated by Vogue with help from Zibby Owens and Briana Parker.
• Emma Rosenblum's 'Bad Summer People' is set on New York's Upper East Side and Fire Island.
• Alex Garland's 'The Beach' (1996) inspired a 2000 film adaptation by Danny Boyle starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Jess Walter's 'Beautiful Ruins' is set in Cinque Terre, Italy, and circles the filming of 'Cleopatra' (1963).
• Sally Rooney's 'Beautiful World, Where Are You' is described as her most hopeful novel.
• François Sagan's 'Bonjour Tristesse' was published 70 years ago and deemed immoral at the time.
• André Aciman's 'Call Me By Your Name' (2007) is set in the 1980s on the Italian Riviera.
• Kate Atkinson's 'Case Histories' is the first Jackson Brodie novel, set in Edinburgh.
• Michael Magee's 'Close to Home' is set in West Belfast and deals with the aftermath of the Troubles.
• James McBride's 'The Color of Water' is a memoir about his white mother, Ruth McBride Jordan.
• Jessica Stanley's 'Consider Yourself Kissed' (2025) covers a decade of an Australian woman's life in the UK.
• Melissa Broder's 'Death Valley' (2023) follows an LA writer in a desert town.
• Oisín McKenna's 'Evenings and Weekends' (2024) is set in London Fields and Dalston.
• Lena Dunham's 'Famesick' is her second memoir.
• Min Jin Lee's 'Free Food for Millionaires' is her first novel, set in Queens and Manhattan.
• Annie Ernaux's 'Getting Lost' is a diary of an affair with a Russian diplomat.
• Dolly Alderton's 'Ghosts' is her debut novel about a 32-year-old food writer.
• Swan Huntley's 'I Want You More' (2025) is set in East Hampton and involves a ghostwriter and a celebrity chef.
• Jem Calder's 'I Want You to Be Happy' follows characters in their 30s and 20s.
• Tana French's 'In the Woods' is the first Dublin Murder Squad novel.
• Rumaan Alam's 'Leave the World Behind' was adapted into a Netflix series starring Julia Roberts.
• Andrew Sean Greer's 'Less' follows a failed novelist traveling to avoid a wedding.
• Chris Cleave's 'Little Bee' is about a Nigerian orphan in the UK.
• Lily King's 'Lovers and Writers' is about a 31-year-old woman determined to be an artist.
• Taylor Jenkins Reid's 'Malibu Rising' is set over 24 hours in August 1983.
• Herman Wouk's 'Marjorie Morningstar' (1955) is about a 17-year-old Jewish girl from the Upper West Side.
• Rachel Ingalls's 'Mrs. Caliban' (1982) is a novella about a housewife and a frog-like man.
• Elena Ferrante's 'My Brilliant Friend' (2002) is the first of the Neapolitan Novels, set in Naples.
• Andre Agassi's 'Open' is a memoir ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer.
• Annie Lord's 'The Project' (2025) is a rom-com set in London.
• Penelope Mortimer's 'The Pumpkin Eater' (1961) is semi-autobiographical.
• Maggie Shipstead's 'Seating Arrangements' (2012) is set on the New England island of Waskeke.
• Mick Herron's 'Slow Horses' is about MI-5 misfits at Slough House, adapted into an Apple TV+ series.
• Chloe Michelle Howarth's 'Sunburn' is a queer coming-of-age story set in the 1990s.
• Ruth Reichl's 'Tender at the Bone' (2010) is her debut memoir about her childhood and food.
• Jonathan Tropper's 'This Is Where I Leave You' is about a family sitting shiva.
• David Nicholls's 'You Are Here' follows two middle-aged people hiking across England.
• Therese Anne Fowler's 'Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald' (2013) is about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald.