Anne Bogel

And maybe it's going to be great for the summer reading guide.

So I've been thinking like way long term and have put this thing together piece by piece.

But you have been collaborating on the guide for many years now, and we're an integral part about deciding not just what our specific vision for 2026 would be with the reading retreat theme, but also really helping me think through how to present those ideas.

And we're going to get into that in detail.

But Ginger, in one sense, you're a creator, but in another sense, you're a co-discoverer with readers because it's just been like...

hours since you saw the first draft of this year's Summer Reading Guide.

So thank you for being the perfect guest and coming to What Should I Read Next today.

Welcome.

Well, I'm glad to hear it.

There are 35 books in this year's guide, once again, and they are broken down in two categories.

We have things like historical happenings, literary and contemporary fiction that this year we've done something fun with.

It's on a spectrum from serious and earnest books

all the way over to playful and quirky.

We have books that are about messy, messy relationships.

And yes, that word is repeated, and I do mean messy in the best sense when it comes to fiction.

We have a category for magical and strange.

We have seaside stories, if I didn't already say that, mystery and suspense, memoir and nonfiction.

There is good stuff in this year's guide.

So we want to create a guide that is compact and has lots of options, but not so many, not the thousands of titles coming out this summer or hundreds that are on my, like I could consider this for the guide reading list, but really whittle it down to some likely to bring you reading joy this summer, all in one little package.

And we have fun features as well.