Whether you read on a tablet, Kindle, or still prefer the smell of a freshly cracked paperback, finding your next book is never easy. You could never read all the new novels, biographies, or nonfiction tomes released each week, so we’re here to help. These are a handful of the new or upcoming books we think deserve a space on your eReader or nightstand. Here are the best new books to read this summer.
Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal
Ken Bensinger
Available Now
It’s not often that rumored global conspiracies turn out to be true. But this particular one did, and, surprisingly, it had to do with soccer. Then again, maybe it’s not surprising, as we keep finding out sport organizations are covering up concussions, doping, and assault. This time, however, it was an all-encompassing conspiracy at every level of FIFA, with control the likes of which organized crime the world over would envy. $23
Florida
Lauren Groff
Available Now
Weirdly enough, Lauren Groff’s new book follows the same main idea as Florida Man, the infamous entity who’s come to define the Sunshine State in recent years. Florida feeds off the energy that Florida seems to have had since the Spanish handed the area over to the early United States, maybe even before. Native Americans of the time didn’t write much down, so we have no way of knowing if they fist-fought crocodiles or chewed their way through stone walls. The main difference between Groff’s book and modern Florida headlines is its literary power. $16
The President is Missing
James Patterson and Bill Clinton
Available Now
Presidents have all kinds of weird post-presidential careers and side hustles. Now that Clinton’s teamed up with James Patterson, it looks like we can add another one to his list. Obviously a book with Bill Clinton sharing half the byline has a lot to do with the president. This time, he’s disappeared for reasons unknown and the country’s gone into a panic. Being that former president Bill Clinton had such a direct hand in this, the book’s full of true-to-life details about how exactly a presidential disappearance could be achieved. Hopefully the Secret Service jumps on plugging some of those holes so this doesn’t become a handbook. $18
The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
Patrick K. O’Donnell
Available Now
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of the more well-known American war memorials, but we’d say most people don’t know much of the story behind it. To be honest, we fall more into that category than we’re comfortable with. It’s why we’re thankful for The Unknowns. We get a more detailed, in-depth look at an indispensable part of American battle history. Even if we don’t know the names of the men honored by the tomb, books like this are an excellent way to keep their spirits alive. $20
Room to Dream
David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
Available Now
Understanding the mind of David Lynch is going to be a work in progress for the next century. People will be dissecting his movies the way people crawl all over James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Though we have a bit of a head start with Lynch’s work, since the man’s still alive and at least mildly willing to talk about his work. As are the people who work with and/or are related to the man. This is the closest most David Lynch fans are ever going to get to their hero and it’s probably more revealing than any one-on-one conversations they’d otherwise have. $20
Calypso
David Sedaris
Available Now
David Sedaris has always had a dark streak to his stories, but Calypso turns things up a bit. As Sedaris is getting older, his observational powers are getting both sharper and redirecting inward. A lot of his material in this book comes from his family, as it always has, but there’s a new introspective layer to it. It’s a layer informed by Sedaris’s own advance in age as well as his visceral realization that he’s closer to death than he is to birth. Younger readers can use this book to prepare themselves for the same stage in life. Older readers will certainly find some commiseration here. Either way, it teaches some valuable lessons. $17
Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons
Mike Reiss and Mathew Klickstein
Available Now
We don’t have to tell you The Simpsons has been on the air for roughly a thousand years. In that millennium (give or take a few years), the cast and crew have produced more stories than the scripts they’ve written. This book is packed full of behind the scenes info and anecdotes from Mike Reiss’s time on the show. You get to know the process, the people, and the occasional insanity that is creating the most iconic show on television. The book’s also pretty much guaranteed a sequel since there’s no end in sight for The Simpsons. $21
The Cabin at the End of the World
Paul Tremblay
June 26
When Stephen King lays heavy praise on your psychological thriller/horror novel, you know you’ve done something right. The beginning of the book reads like the exact reasons you should never trust strangers, no matter how charismatic they might be. If you’re a seven-year-old, don’t talk to grown adults who appear from the woods when the closest house is two miles down the road in either direction. Though, to the credit of the seven-year-old girl in The Cabin at the End of the World, she is better than most would be at context clues. When the stranger switches to obviously creepy, she does run to tell her parents. At least she’s starting to understand stranger danger. $22
Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery
Andrew Shaffer
July 10
Hope Never Dies isn’t great literature and it’s not going to have a Chaucer-esque legacy. What that means is we have to count ourselves extraordinarily lucky that we live in this world at the same time as this book. It’s the Obama/Biden bromance mystery thriller that the world’s been waiting for. Amtrak Joe and the president go tooling around Delaware on a search for a murderer. Again, it’s not great literature, but it’ll keep you wildly entertained while you’re on the beach or lazing around the house. $14
The Fighters
C.J. Chivers
August 28
You’d think being nearly 20 years removed from the beginning of a war would mean the war’s long over and we’ve gotten some perspective on it. That might not be the case for the end of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we can now at least understand the beginning of it. The Fighters covers both conflicts from the start, following six U.S. combatants through their time overseas. Through their eyes, we get to see how combat’s changed since the Second World War and what repercussions a long war is already having on America, its armed forces, and its foreign policy. $28
