New Yorkers reveal their beach reading and summer books for 2024

It was one of the first Really hot days of the year in New York, and I had a mission. With photographer Yael Malka, I boarded the ferry to the Rockaways in search of the hottest (outdoor) club in town: Jacob Riis Park. The beach, which was already in summer mode, was full. Music ranging from EDM beats to disco songs to J.Lo hits could be heard over the expanse of hot sand and beautiful bodies. Near the shore, someone had set up a table marked “Free Date” to entice a hopeful romantic to sit down and wait for another beachgoer to join them. Some people were dancing, others were drinking, many were swimming or sleeping – and some had their noses buried in a book.

On the ferry and on the beach, I discovered the book that inspired me KillingEve (Luke Jennings Codename Villanelle), a classic Tolkien trilogy (Lord of the ringsanyone?), BookTok sensation Sarah J. Maas’ Queen of Shadowsa legal textbook, AS Byatts The little black book of storiesand of course the book of the summer: All four, by Miranda July. The recommendations we gathered didn’t remotely resemble any summer reading list I’ve ever seen. That’s exactly why they come together to form the ultimate summer reading list, with representatives from a range of genres, authors, and even decades. The lesson? Read whatever you want this summer, and don’t worry about having the hottest titles on your shelf. I certainly won’t.

Photo: Yael Malka

“It’s a gift I got recently from a friend,” says Omar. “He said, ‘This suits you. You’re dark.’ Getting a book like this is a love letter. I read Neruda in Arabic, but it was a very bad translation. So to read it again now and hear the poet, it changes everything. I love him, but he’s a bit mean sometimes. I read very hard poems, but it’s such a beautiful day, so I enjoy that too. I understand that I’m sitting here in my safety and at the same time I think that he was in political exile. I came from political exile; I came from Syria, so I have a connection with him.”

“I like the author. His writing style is very interesting – it’s more of an investigation from multiple perspectives,” says Leda. “I’m reading it for the third time now. It deals with some more serious topics, so the reader has discretion and needs some guidance, but I really like it. It definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat. And then there’s a twist at the end.”

“I’m an aspiring screenwriter. This is the universally accepted textbook of screenwriting. He’s very grumpy, but definitely an expert on his subject,” Hope says. “I usually read it right before bed. It’s pretty boring, so I fall asleep right away. It’s funny that I read it in daylight. I keep taking naps and then waking up again. The basics of the book are the essential basics of story theory, so Aristotle, and act structures and building and releasing tension. It’s cool.”

“It’s been cool so far. I just started today. Each chapter is a different character’s perspective, so I’m still getting to know the people very well,” Clay says. “It was on the bookshelf at our house. My roommates read it. The common thread is that they’re all Native Americans living in Oakland. It feels emotional, but interesting. I love emotional reading. It feels very personal, kind of like a diary. It wasn’t hard to concentrate while listening to the music and noise in the background.”

Photo: Yael Malka

“I’m about halfway through. It’s about the protests against the World Trade Organization in 2000, I think. It’s fictional,” says Alex. “It’s the stories of lots of different people who get caught up in the protests and come together. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s very fast-paced and a light, interesting, sometimes emotional read. I would recommend it. It’s a little intense, but it’s good.”

“It was a really compelling beach read. I have about 50 pages left, which is exciting. It’s a fun book for the summer and I love Miranda. She always writes fascinating stories,” says Genevieve. “It was compelling. I bought it two days after it came out. It reminds me a little of some books I’ve read by Elena Ferrante and they’re often set on the beach in the summer, but these books are about a woman going through this or going through a crisis and I really enjoy reading these books in the summer. It was strange and delightful.”

“It’s a lesbian western. I’m still relatively new to my job and getting involved in things. There’s a thriving queer community at my workplace and everything is hyper-feminine, which is really fun. This is our book club book,” Claudia says. “I’m from Oklahoma and my dad is a cattle geneticist, so I grew up around horses and cows and cattle. Literally all of his students were cowboys and cowgirls. Country western stuff makes me homesick in a good way. After just a few pages, I get very nostalgic. I’m still early on, but I think it’s going to be raunchy. Summer reads are great when they’re a little raunchy. When I was growing up, anyone with a female presence was such an inconsequential character, and it’s very wonderful to read something even at the very beginning of this book where the female presence is the most complicated and interesting character. It makes me reevaluate my childhood and imagine what I could expect of myself based on the stories I was told.”

“I just read relationship and I really enjoyed it, and a friend of mine said, “If you like that, you’ll like this even more.” So I’m on this one now,” says Laurel. “The first few pages of relationship grabbed me quicker, but when hyperempathy came along, I thought: fascinating. It piqued my interest. Let me pick some words off the back: anarchy, paralyzing sensitivity to other people’s feelings, survival. Maybe some hard themes, but I guess hard themes are OK for the beach.”

“It’s a collection of short stories. The one I just started reading started with a baby abandoned in a monastery and raised by monks. When the baby turns 30, she starts working as a laundress for this woman, Señora Lucy,” Grace says. “Now it’s about Señora Lucy’s life, and she’s apparently a con artist who’s in a relationship with another con artist. It’s about lesbian con artists who enjoy conning people, and that’s where I’m at with the book. Her friend has just been accused of murdering her employer. Let’s see how it goes. It was sitting on my bookshelf, I was looking for a new book to read and I hadn’t read this one yet. Short stories are perfect for a beach trip. There’s intrigue, mystery, romance, crime, everything.”

“Cecilia Gentili is an icon of the trans community in Brooklyn who passed away earlier this year. She was a great mother. This book is this amazing glimpse into a very young version of herself who was already embodied in her transsexuality. Someone noticed something in her that she didn’t even know was there, which is such a part of queerness. And then I read Tarot for Changeby Jessica Dore. Whenever I do a tarot reading, I use this book. She interprets it through a modality of behavioral psychology. Tarot is simply a portal through which you can receive information from the universe. This is an amazing book that encourages you to look at the tarot through a prism of self-love and compassion. These books seem to complement the context we are in. We are on the beach, surrounded by so many people, so many breast surgery scars. Being here is a powerful vortex.”