With the summer holidays just around the corner, we’ve teamed up with one of our favourite book influencers, Phoebe Robinson of @whatphoeberead, to bring you her recommended top 10 summer reads for 2025. Whether you’re looking for a poignant novel, a travel memoir, or an unexpected gem that lingers long after the last page, Phoebe’s picks are guaranteed to upgrade your reading list.
Trust us, you’ll want to leave room in your suitcase for these!
Meet @whatphoeberead
Hi! I’m Phoebe, the book-obsessed person behind @whatphoeberead. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I have a soft spot for a beautifully curated stack of contemporary fiction, a well-placed flat lay, and a story that completely pulls me in.
I’m very much a seasonal reader, which means if it’s summer, I want my books to feel like summer too. Think beachy settings, sun-soaked adventures, or anything that pairs well with an iced coffee and a quiet hour in the sun. And if I can read a book in the country it’s actually set in? Even better. There’s something magical about matching the mood of a book to the time and place that makes the experience so much richer.
So, if you’re looking for some summer reading inspiration, here are my top 10 books I’ve loved, shouted about, and believe deserve a spot in your tote bag this summer.
Phoebe’s top 10 summer book picks
1. Summer by Ali Smith
Ali Smith’s Summer is the final book in her Seasonal Quartet, and it’s the perfect read for this time of year. Set during the sweltering heat of a very particular summer, it captures the atmosphere of the season so vividly. Think golden light, restless energy, and the strange stillness that often comes with hot days.
As always with Smith, it’s clever, layered, and so timely, weaving together art, politics, history, and human connection in a way that somehow feels both weighty and completely effortless.
Reading it made me feel both grounded in the present and slightly suspended in time, like those long, slow summer afternoons where nothing much happens, but everything somehow shifts. It’s a book that holds the season in its bones and that makes it a brilliant one to read right now.
2. The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk’s The Last Supper is a slow, reflective travel memoir that follows her family’s time spent living in Italy, and it’s absolutely the kind of book I want to read in summer. It’s sun-soaked but never superficial, rich with art, history, and observations on culture, identity, and belonging.
Cusk’s writing is sharp and introspective, always looking beyond the postcard version of a place to something more thoughtful and nuanced. Her descriptions of the Italian landscape are so vivid you can practically feel the heat rising from the stone streets and smell the espresso drifting through quiet piazzas.
It’s the kind of book that makes you want to pack a bag, hop on a train, and observe the world a little more closely. A perfect pick for slow summer mornings when you want to be transported somewhere beautiful.
3. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk is dreamy, unsettling, and totally hypnotic, the kind of book that seeps into your skin like the sun on a long, hot afternoon. Set in a blistering Spanish coastal town, it follows Sofia as she cares for her enigmatic mother and slowly starts to unravel her own identity.
The heat is practically a character in itself, sticky, oppressive, and always simmering just beneath the surface. It’s a book full of tension and ambiguity, with Levy’s signature sparse, lyrical prose that leaves so much unsaid in the most satisfying way.
Hot Milk is the perfect summer read if you like your fiction a little off-kilter and atmospheric. It’s not about plot as much as mood, and that mood is sun-drenched, salty, and just a bit strange. I couldn’t put it down.
4. Elena Ferrante’s Italian Quartet
I’ve only read the first two books in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet (My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name), but I already know I’m in for something special, and I honestly can’t wait to get stuck into the next instalments.
Set in a gritty, sun-drenched Naples, these novels follow the intense, complicated friendship between Elena and Lila as they grow up, drift apart, and navigate love, ambition, class, and identity. Ferrante captures female friendship with such raw honesty. Full of admiration, competition, resentment, and love — it’s both uncomfortable and completely gripping.
The setting is everything: hot pavements, crumbling buildings, and blue seas; it all pulses with life and tension. It’s the kind of series I want to read slowly, ideally somewhere warm, letting the characters and atmosphere completely absorb me. Messy, emotional, and fiercely intelligent, this is summer reading at its best.
5. Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Good Material by Dolly Alderton is such a smart, funny, and unexpectedly tender take on heartbreak, and I absolutely devoured it. Told from the perspective of Andy, a struggling comedian reeling from a breakup he didn’t see coming, it flips the usual script and gives us the male side of a relationship’s aftermath.
It’s full of Alderton’s signature wit and warmth but also packed with sharp observations on love, friendship, growing up, and figuring out who you are when everything familiar falls away. I loved how it balanced humour with real emotional depth, one minute I was laughing, and the next I was crying.
Not your typical “summer read” maybe, but it’s incredibly readable and full of heart, perfect for packing in your bag and getting stuck into on a long train journey or sunny weekend away.
6. Pearl by Siân Hughes
Pearl by Siân Hughes is one of those quiet, haunting novels that completely creeps up on you. It’s a story about loss, memory, and a young girl navigating the strange silence left behind when her mother disappears, but it’s also about place and the deep pull of the landscape we grow up in.
Set in the heart of the English countryside, it’s full of misty fields, hidden rivers, and that eerie stillness you only get in remote villages. The writing is sparse and poetic, and there’s a real sense of folklore and timelessness running through it all.
It’s the perfect UK getaway read, atmospheric, rooted in nature, and ideal for reading by a window with rain tapping on the glass or outside with birdsong and a cup of tea. If you’re after something short, lyrical, and quietly powerful, Pearl is it.
7. Other Minds by Peter Godfrey Smith
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith is one of the most fascinating and unexpectedly moving non-fiction reads I’ve picked up in a while. It’s all about cephalopods (yes, really), exploring their intelligence, consciousness, and what they can teach us about the nature of minds so different from our own.
Blending philosophy, marine biology, and personal experience, Godfrey-Smith dives into the alien world of the ocean with such clarity and curiosity. It made me see these strange, shape-shifting creatures in a totally new light — clever, curious, and completely unlike us in all the best ways.
It’s one of those books that expands your brain while keeping things readable and engaging. A perfect summer read if you want something thought-provoking but totally immersive, especially if you’re anywhere near the sea.
8. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of those quietly devastating novels that lingers long after you’ve finished it. It follows Klara, an Artificial Friend waiting in a store window, observing the world and hoping to be chosen. When she is, what unfolds is a tender, unsettling look at love, loneliness, and what it really means to be human.
What makes it such a beautiful summer read is Klara herself, being wide-eyed, sun-worshipping, and quietly hopeful. The way she sees the world is strange and gentle, and Ishiguro’s clean prose lets you sit in the stillness with her. There’s something about reading it on a warm day, with the light filtering through the leaves, that’s unmatched.
9. Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin is completely unlike anything else I’ve read, in the best possible way. It’s weird, funny, sharp, and surprisingly tender. The story follows Greta, a transcriptionist for a sex therapist, who becomes obsessed with one of the patients — a woman she nicknames Big Swiss — and then, in a twist of fate, meets her in real life.
Set in a sticky, off-kilter version of upstate New York, the whole book buzzes with heat, bees, sweat, and sexual tension. It’s got that dreamy, chaotic summer energy where everything feels a bit surreal and slightly unhinged but in a good way.
Beagin’s voice is dry, dark, and hilarious, but also full of unexpected heart. This one’s for anyone who likes their summer reads with edge, eccentric characters, and a bit of bite. Wild, witty, and completely addictive.
10. Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy
Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy (Outline, Transit, Kudos) is sharp, quietly electric, and a masterclass in listening, observing, and letting stories unfold in unexpected ways. These books don’t follow a traditional plot, instead, they build through conversation, fragments, and passing moments, all held together by Cusk’s cool, precise prose.
Outline is set in a sweltering Athens, where the narrator (a writer) arrives to teach a summer writing course. What follows is a series of conversations with strangers and acquaintances, each one quietly revealing as much about the speaker as it does about the listener. It’s a book about travel, disconnection, self-erasure, and the strange intimacy of fleeting encounters.
Perfect for those slow, sun-dazed days when you want something reflective and atmospheric. The kind of book to read alone at a café in a new city, or while people-watching on holiday.
Quick recap: summer reading list 2025
Original Rustic bookcase | @whatphoeberead
- Summer by Ali Smith
- The Last Supper by Rachel Cusk
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
- My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Quartet) by Elena Ferrante
- Good Material by Dolly Alderton
- Pearl by Siân Hughes
- Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
- Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk
What’s your must-read book this summer? Tag us on Instagram or TikTok using #OakFurnitureland and #GrowYourHome to share your perfect book nook.
Don’t forget to follow @whatphoeberead for more literary inspiration or discover some stylish bookcase ideas.
