New York Times Readers Share Their Most Anticipated Books of the Summer

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

2026 Winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Nonfiction Announced

This year’s Women’s Prize for Nonfiction is a book I haven’t heard too much about, but it sounds intriguing. The Finest Hotel by Lyse Doucet is narrative nonfiction about the lives of modern-day Afghans who are running a luxury hotel. Doucet first stayed in the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul in 1988, 19 years after it first opened its doors. Through her stay, she sees major, country-changing events, like a civil war, a US invasion, and more. This feels like the book version of Wes Anderson’s movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is the only movie of his I’ve seen several times. It’s now on my TBR.

Now, the winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction is a book that’s been making the rounds. If you haven’t heard of it by now, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an epistolary novel that follows a letter-writing 73-year-old woman who has to settle some things in her past. I haven’t read it, but it seems to be part of a group of mega-popular books that are uplifting (others are Theo of Golden, Remarkably Bright Creatures, etc.).

New York Times Readers Share Their Most Anticipated Books for the Summer

There is something about finding out what readers want to read—I say that as someone whose job it is to know, and as a reader. For me, part of the reason I’m always interested in it is the fun that comes with guessing which books a certain publication’s readers would gravitate towards. When it comes to my guesses for New York Times readers…I was mostly right. Most of the books are buzzy bestsellers—like Kin and Yesteryear for fiction, and Strangers by Belle Burden and London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe for nonfiction. There are a couple of surprises, though. Trash! by Simon Pare-Poupart, for instance, is a memoir that looks at overconsumption from the perspective of a veteran Montreal garbageman.

Elias Thorne Is Chatbots’ Favorite Character

Not going to lie, it’s getting a little spooky out here in these AI streets. Researchers scoured through 20,000 stories from different AI platforms—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the Allen Institute for AI’s chatbot—and found something curious. In more than 88% of the stories, names like Elias, Elara, and Mara appear, as do jobs like clockmaker, librarian, and lighthouse keeper. And now, “Elas Thorne” has made his way out of the Chatbots’ chains. There are Eliases showing up on Amazon now who are authors of books on subjects like alt-medicine and Greek mythology, and AI grifting. Elias has even made it to YouTube. The reason given for all the repetition is safety—in wanting to maintain a safe-for-work rating with stories that chatbots assemble, some things have to be censored—I’m not sure this quite explains why Elias and his lighthouse/library/clock are so popular, though.

Unhinged Romances

I didn’t realize how much I love romance that’s good and unhinged until I started reading Kimberly Lemming. Man, she is a mess (in the good way), and she’s also on this list that Book Riot writer and author Susie Dumond has put together, just in time for summer.

That’s why I’d argue that the ideal beach read is a completely bonkers romance novel with a cover so shocking that no one will dare interrupt you. These five unhinged romance books make for perfect vacation reading because they’re highly entertaining and just weird enough to scare off strangers. A bookish introvert’s delight!