Who’s ready for some outdoor reading?
June brings us the official start of summer (though in Chicago we’re still getting only glimpses). But what’s better than the start of summer? The start of summer reading!
Our 12 Must-Read Books of June 2025 offer sweeping family stories, laugh-out-loud satires, undeniable lyricism, and everything else you need to enjoy the turn of the season. Here’s to many warm days and great reads ahead!
Waterline
By Aram Mrjoian
HarperVia
Echoing the scope, scale, and lyrical splendor of Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, Aram Mrjoian’s novel Waterline is a remarkable intergenerational and transcontinental family epic that stands out even among the impressive debuts we’ve seen this year. When the Kurkjian family discovers that their child Mari has swum from an island outside of Detroit to the depths of Lake Michigan with no intent of returning to shore, the emergency uncovers a series of long held family traumas dating back to the Armenian Genocide. Mrjoian’s writing about the history, culture, and perseverance of the Armenian people and this unforgettable family in the face of tragedy is nothing short of a triumph.
The Nimbus
By Robert P Baird
Henry Holt and Co.
The premise of Robert P Baird’s debut novel is a delight: The toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor at a university in Chicago mysteriously starts to glow, and chaos ensues. Exploring this otherworldly glow and the people whose lives are transformed or upended by it, The Nimbus is a hilarious and powerful portrait of faith (or perhaps more accurately the crisis of faith) in a secular and lost age. The Nimbus is both big hearted and boundless in its spiritual examination.
Flashlight
By Susan Choi
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Susan Choi follows up her National Book Award winning novel Trust Exercise with Flashlight, which follows much of what we love about her writing with an even larger scope. On a summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater with nothing but a flashlight, even though her father can’t swim. Louisa is later found on the beach alive, but her father is gone. From this shocking tragedy, Choi unspools the complicated history of this family that stretches back to the father’s decision to leave his family when they relocate to North Korea. What’s particularly magnificent about Flashlight is the way in which it hinges on a mystery we may never neatly solve; instead, Choi’s latest is an ode to the difficult choices we make to build a life and the ways in which they all can come falling down in a moment.
Songs of No Provenance
By Lydi Conklin
Catapult
I love a novel that can conjure the allure of music on the page, and Songs of No Provenance does it better than most. Lydi Conklin’s latest follows Joan Vole, an indie folk singer teetering on the edge of fame who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage that she fears will doom her career. Songs of No Provenance is a sharp investigation of the toxicity of artists and the art world, asking the question we’ve found ourselves debating for years now: Can you truly separate the art from the artist? Joan Vole is a deeply complicated and compelling protagonist, proving once again that Conklin has a grasp of character in ways that few writers reach.
The War of Art
By Lauren O’Neill-Butler
Verso
In The War of Art, Lauren O’Neill-Butler explores the long history of artists using their chosen form as a tool to fight injustice and government overreach. Using a variety of case studies from ecological protests to David Wojnarowicz’s famous “If I die of AIDS” jacket, O’Neill-Butler offers an essential corrective to the idea that art history excludes politics, arguing instead that they are intricately linked. At a time in which many artists are understandably feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and unproductive, The War of Art is an essential call to action and a reminder that our work has the power to create lasting change.
Meet Me at the Crossroads
By Megan Giddings
Amistad
Our staff loved Megan Giddings’s Lakewood, so we’re thrilled to see that she has returned with a new novel that combines grounded characters with intriguing speculative elements. When seven mysterious doors appear that seemingly lead to another world, Ayanna and Olivia—two Black midwestern teens and twin sisters—must confront the possibility for a better existence in comparison to the only life they’ve ever known. Meet Me at the Crossroads is one of those rare novels that plant a seed of possibility in your mind, growing into questions of “what if” that will stay with you forever.
The Dry Season
By Melissa Febos
Knopf
After a painful breakup following a two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break from all dating, relationships, and sex for three months. The decision allowed her to put into context her addiction to romance and love that got in the way of truly caring for herself. The Dry Season tells the story of her revelatory experience and puts her own life into context with influential women throughout history—including Virginia Woolf, Octavia Butler, and more. The result is an emotionally explosive memoir that looks honestly at our desire for pleasure and fulfillment in our lives.
The Book of Echoes
By David Gregory Welch
Jackleg Press
The Book of Echoes is the latest book from Chicago poet David Gregory Welch. This deeply personal and profound collection introduces readers to the speaker’s journey through Tourette’s syndrome, turning motor tics, echolalia, and phantom speech into a vibrant celebration. Welch’s latest abounds with melodic language, joyous glimmers into life in all its complexity, and the boldness of true and wholehearted confessionals. Sometimes the title of a book just says it best: the poems in this collection are sure to echo and resonate for readers.
The Möbius Book
By Catherine Lacey
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
In The Möbius Book, Catherine Lacey details the devastation of the winter of 2021, when a sudden breakup and betrayal from her partner resulted in a deep depression that conjured memories of her past religious fervor and eventual dissolution with faith entirely. Lacey is known to play with form, and her latest is no different. The Möbius Book combines fiction and nonfiction to chart her life, and—as the name suggests—it refuses simple endings to the lessons she works through.
How to Dodge a Cannonball
By Dennard Dayle
Henry Holt and Co.
We will never say no to a great satire, and Dennard Dayle’s first novel is a particular joy. Set during the Civil War, How to Dodge a Cannonball follows a teenage idealist named Anders who begins as a proud Union flag twirler and then tries his hand at being a diehard Confederate after he’s captured, only to leave Gettysburg for a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. This strange band of characters offers laughs and insight at every turn, building the heartbeat of the novel that so often pulses with promise.
We are Green and Trembling
By Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
Translated by Robin Myers
New Directions
Deep in the wilds of the New World, Antonio de Erauso writes to his aunt about his monumental adventures after escaping the convent—including his time as a mule driver, soldier, conquistador and more. Now he is being pursued by the army he deserted after freeing two Guaraní girls he rescued from enslavement. We are Green and Trembling is a sharp historical epic that is both heavily researched and light in its lyricism. This is a novel that will show you the world as you savor its captivating story.
Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story
By Erica Stern
Barrelhouse Inc.
After unexpected pregnancy complications put Erica Stern on the threshold of life and death, she was able to identify the liminal space that connects her to generations of mothers before her. Frontier is a fascinating hybrid memoir that combines the author’s personal experience with pregnancy and motherhood and a Wild West ghost story about a mother who died in childbirth that roams her old homestead, tethered to the family she left behind. With its intricate and unique blend of memoir, fiction, and research, Frontier highlights how versatile and provocative the art form of writing can be when handled by a writer as talented as Erica Stern.
