I have huge reading goals for 2026 but haven’t really talked about them much so I thought I would post a list of my tentative summer reading goals. I do have more books in mind but don’t want to overload with too many books at the start of the summer. I tend to read a lot in the summer, more than the winter by far so I am not worried that I am only at 7 out of my 26 books read goal for 2026. I am keeping track of my reading goals under OscoeyReads on StoryGraph. My 26 for 2026 booklist can be found with the following link and at the end of this article in the Links section. My challenge is open ended. Add whatever books you like!
For the summer I want to keep it pretty simple and I just chose a few books I had on hand or had already checked out from the library. I usually read a lot of fluff books over the summer but since I am doing my 75 Soft challenge for my Q3 personal curriculum I do have quite a few non-fiction books to read in there as well.
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First up is Skinny Liver by Kristin Kirkpatrick and Ibrahim Hanouneh. This is a detailed description of many types of fatty liver disease and how you can both prevent and heal many forms of it. It is a good book to read if you meet any of the criteria for potentially having Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease or NAFLD such as being in your 40’s or older, overweight, eating a typical American diet or have genetic risk factors. I am in the middle of this one and it is so far engaging and pretty good. They recommend a Mediterranean diet as a solution so this was a good start to my 75 Soft challenge.
Another book that I checked out from the library and am in the middle of is Forgotten Orphan by Glynis Peters. This book is about a girl who was left at an orphanage with her twin brother when she was small with no indication of who her parents are. Her brother is adopted out immediately but she remains until she is an adult and WWII breaks out. This book was a bestseller and is a little fluffy but so far I am really enjoying reading it. It is a quick read and I was excited to see that the library had other books that looked to be in the same series.
I have three health books checked out from the library right now and The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes is the second one I plan on reading this summer. It is a book about the rise of sugar in the western diet and how it has affected diabetes rates. I picked this one up on a whim but so far I have read the intro and it is pretty good and fitting for a summer of focusing on my health and reworking my diet. I am interested to see what they end up recommending. Being on the low histamine diet there is not a lot of processed sugar involved but I do notice how much less sugar is in every day foods now that I live outside of the U.S.. It is crazy how much sugar is added to everything now!
The third library book I have checked out on health is Outlive by Peter Attia. I have not started this one yet but it did come highly recommended by a friend and when I was doing my research into a low histamine diet. I am starting this one after The Case Against Sugar and am hoping it will provide some insight into Blue Zones and how to live a longer, healthier life.
Next up is The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf. This book was given to me as part of a set of Bestsellers and it has been calling to me ever since. I am also interested in reading Founding Gardeners by the same author as well. She writes about Alexander von Humboldt and how he created nature, environmentalism and other ideas about the world in general. I am pretty excited to read this one and may even do a whole unit on it for my future personal curriculum.
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton is a book I picked up on a whim at Half Price Books this year. I don’t know much about it besides what is written on the cover but it jumped out at me on the shelf. It appears to be about a young bride who hires a miniaturist to create pieces to fill a doll house sized replica of her house in the 1800s. This is one of my fiction books that I am hoping will be a little fluffy for a poolside read this summer.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed is also a book I picked up at Half Price Books but I had heard of it and the movie before I bought it. This book is the author’s account of traveling the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother and is supposed to be very good. I picture this one as a July read but we will see when I actually end up reading it. I will definitely be watching the movie after I read the book as well.
One of my personal curriculum goals is to do a unit on ethics, logic and philosophy taking inspiration from one of my favorite shows, The Good Place. I did buy a few books from the series at Half Price Books based on a list of books mentioned in the show and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is one of them. I don’t think I have read anything like this except maybe long ago in college so I am curious to read it. Eventually I will do the whole list of books from the series but for now, reading one seems like a good start.
I wanted to read at least one classic this summer and I felt like it was time for a reread of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens so I pulled out my copy from middle school to add to my summer reading list this year. I haven’t read this on in at least a decade so I am curious as to whether my opinion on it has changed at all. I have read it a few times since middle school and I have loved it every time. The two cites the book is about are London and Paris and it is set during the French Revolution. Honestly it has been so long since I read it last the details are getting fuzzy but I am excited to read it again!
An easy finish for me will be Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan. I started the Percy Jackson series last summer at the insistence of my youngest and got through about half of the third book. These are about Percy Jackson who is the offspring of a god who is coming of age and now exposed to all of the monsters that want to attack him. The series is very well written but is at a middle school level so it goes very fast. I have read them before with my other kids but I love how sweetly my youngest wanted me to read it with them. I should be able to finish this one easily and maybe we will watch the movies or TV show again this summer just for fun.
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. I got this in a set of bestsellers and have been holding off on reading it until the TV series came out. Now it is time to read it so I have it on my list for the summer. I greatly enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale show and book so I expect to enjoy this one as well.
I wanted to do an honorable mention to the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch for a summer read. I checked this book out randomly from the library but it looks like it is the 9th book in the series so I am going to find the first book at read that prior to the other ones. The series sounds interesting and is about a cop who solves a mystery in an alternate universe and I want to read at least the first one in the series.
Another honorable mention is this Ghiblioteque by Michael Leader and Jake Cunningham book I found at the library. It is a description of the Studio Ghibli films and appears to be pretty comprehensive. I am going to look through this one before I return it but not count it as fully read. I may go back later and read it fully but it is so detailed I know I won’t get through the whole thing before I have to return it so I want to pause on it and let someone else enjoy it this summer.
Thank you for reading about my summer reads! What do you plan on reading this summer?
Links:
Books:
Skinny Liver by Kristin Kirkpatrick and Ibrahim Hanouneh
Forgotten Orphan by Glynis Peters
The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
