2026 Summer Reading List: Yours
This week officially marks the beginning of Book Nerd Christmas: that time when the literary lovers among us kick off the summer reading season by peering into each others beach book bag. (You don’t have a beach book bag? For shame.)
Later this week, I’ll post what I plan to read this summer, but for today, here are the top ten titles I think you should consider cracking open. Some of these were on my own reading list last summer, or my “top ten” post for 2025, or have made it to a Top Ten Quotes post, and I think they’re worthy of a spot in your beach book bag.
Authentic Ministry: Serving from the Heart, Michael Reeves. An incredibly short, yet incredibly rich book that hits your soul even if you’re not in full-time vocational ministry. (See the Top Ten Quotes post.)
A Certain Idea of America: Selected Writings, Peggy Noonan. Whether you’re Team Semiquincentennial or you’ve been calling it the Bisesquicentennial before Sestercentennial was cool, this summer marks America’s 250th anniversary. And one of my favorite writers delivers a collection of essays that take us back to a more patriotic time.
De-sizing the Church: How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession, and What’s Next, Karl Vaters. (See the Top Ten Quotes post.) Fun fact: I had the opportunity to grab breakfast with Karl earlier this year, and he proved to be just as wise and insightful in person as De-Sizing led me to believe. No matter your church size, this book will give you much to chew on.
The Imagineering Story: The Official Biography of Walt Disney Imagineering, Leslie Iwerks. (See the Top Ten Quotes post.) If your vacation plans are taking you to The Happiest Place on Earth, this incredibly deep dive into how the magic is made will be a fun companion on a plane ride or two (or 12, because it’s not a short read.)
Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think, Tasha Eurich. A friend calls this “the best book on self-awareness I’ve ever read,” and I think she’s on to something.
A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders, Mark Sayers. (See the Top Ten Quotes post.) If you fancy being a more faithful leader in a time of near-total insanity, Sayers says what we need to hear.
Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, Andrew Wilson. Listen, I love Andrew Wilson’s writings. But this is not the short-and-easy style of God of All Things or It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (the endnotes and index easily take up a quarter of the nearly 400 pages). He goes all in on what went down in ’76, and how that shaped our worldview even today. Another good read for your semibisesquisestercentennial celebration.
Respectable Sins, Jerry Bridges. (See the Top Ten Quotes post.) If you like your summer reading to have a healthy dose of kicking you in the pants, this book’ll do it. Bridges helpfully and pastorally walks us through those seemingly-small areas of compromise in our lives, and calls us higher.
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, Jeff Guinn. This was an absolutely fascinating history of the rise of a cult leader and what ultimately led to the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. Fair warning: the book is solidly PG-13 content, because for a guy who claimed to be God, ol’ Jimmy had a potty mouth, zero morals, and was not, in fact (spoiler alert!), God.
We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance, David Armine Howarth. One of the most page-turning books I’ve read in the last year, this is an epic tale of the lone survivor of a skirmish in Nazi-occupied Norway. Plus, the arctic conditions will be a mind-bender while you’re soaking up the sun.
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