July 11, 2026
This is the time of year when many workers of the world set their emails to let people know they’re away. The prospect of having unscheduled time to relax—and, especially, to read those books you’ve been saving—is divine. Here are five to consider for your summer reading. A young woman experiences the dangers of the academic bubble; the legacy of a family farm threatens to become more of an encumbrance than a gift; confining life under the Ceausescu dictatorship spawns a surprisingly sweet and comic relationship; a popular chef spins a delightful rom-com; and a bestselling journalist offers a provocative collection of essays about mothers and daughters.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Famous Men
By Julie Buntin
Published by Random House
Buntin captures lonely young women grappling with small-town life with razor-sharp acuity. Midwestern Wilhelmina longs to become a writer like the local-born, renowned poet Nathaniel Fellow. Growing up without a dad, she fantasized that he was her father. She manages to become his personal assistant in NYC where he teaches an infamous writer’s workshop. Talk about daddy issues. It’s a dream come true—until years later, when she becomes a published writer and Nathaniel’s behavior towards women is called out on social media. Buntin lets you see many sides to the story, avoiding polemic while illuminating the slippery slope of teacher-student relations and the vulnerability of a young girl on the cusp of something bigger than herself.
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Astronaut!
By Oana Aristide
Published by W. W. Norton
This Transylvania-born writer has conceived a darkly entertaining story that takes place during the Romanian fascism of her childhood. Under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship, no one is sure who they can trust and food is scarce. A police detective, Constantin, is called to investigate a mutilated dead body in a ditch—the first of multiple deaths attributed to a man-eating bear. His life intersects with Lia, a 9-year-old girl who loves to color and whose imagination sometimes gets her in trouble. Aristide says, “The title is a protest message that Lia wrote, and…the exclamation mark… fits the spirit of the book…” The novel combines a tender coming-of-age story and a suspenseful mystery against the volatile political setting.
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Down to Earth
By 831 Stories
Published by Julia Turshen
Turshen pivots from food to romance in her first novel. Her publisher, 831 Stories, a 3-year-old company, is gaining traction for their modern approach to the genre—novella-length romance with cleanly designed covers, reminiscent of foreign editions. In this debut, we are in a charming small town in upstate New York where Frankie is a vegetable farmer and Paige has moved up from Brooklyn with her young son to reinvent their lives. The initial attraction between them is obvious. Will these two women pursue it? With its appealing country setting and the sensual tension building, Turshen, a part-time farmer herself, provides an inviting story you will read in one gulp.
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The Great Wherever
By Shannon Sanders
Published by Henry Holt & Co.
Aubrey Lamb has come upon a run of bad luck. Reeling from losing both her father and a long-term relationship, with money problems as well, her luck may be changing when she finds out she has inherited a share of the family farm in Tennessee. But this seemingly perfect opportunity to leave DC comes with its own complications, not to mention a quartet of judgmental ancestral ghosts who hover over her (like her great grandfather, an early Black landowner). Told by an unnamed narrator, we discover family secrets that will have a tragic repercussion. Sanders has come up with a beautiful multigenerational story about inheritance—both literal and metaphorical.
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You Won't Get Free of It
By Rachel Aviv
Published by Knopf
The esteemed author of Strangers to Ourselves delves deeply into mother-daughter relationships by revisiting six pieces she wrote for the New Yorker. One is about a woman who entered “dissociative fugue states.” Another is about the writer Alice Munro and her husband’s abuse of her daughter. Aviv reconsiders her previous work—older now, and as a mother herself, she says, “Now I have returned to them with a different identification.” The book is fascinating on many levels. She is basically living her mother’s dream of becoming a successful writer. And, by re-examining these stories, she reveals the ways in which motherhood altered her understanding of the mother-daughter dynamic. Quite wonderful and thought-provoking.
