The Reading Lounge: June New Releases

June books that sound so good!

Hello! Are you as excited as I am to dive😉 into June’s amazing variety of new release books?! This list was super fun to curate. Between all the summer reading guides and new release book lists, I initially had a huge list of anticipated June books I wanted to read. I then did a bit of my own research and found some new to me titles for June that I haven’t seen anyone else talking about and from there I narrowed down the choices to the 13 books books you see here. If you’re seeing a title on lots of other lists, you probably won’t be seeing it here on mine; I’m in the mood for less buzzy, more under the radar new releases.

Also, this list is HUGE, so two ways I’m planning to read as many books as I can this month are: drastically limiting my time on social media and making this list my priority TBR (I’ll probably also add in 1 or 2 backlist titles). How are you planning your June reading?

June New Releases I Can’t Wait To Read

• Bright and Tender Dark by Joanna Pearson (Bloomsbury, June 4) - A wire-taut literary debut about a murder on a college campus and its aftermath twenty years later.

• Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House Books, June 4) - A masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.

• Forgotten On Sunday by Valerie Perrin (Europa Editions, June 4) - An unforgettable story about an unlikely friendship, the consequences of undeclared love, and about healing the wounds of a broken past

• I’ve Tried Being Nice by Ann Leary (Simon & Schuster, June 4) - A memoir and literary feast of humor and wisdom told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser. Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying--and often failing--to be nice. **I loved her fiction book The Good House so this is high on my must read list

• The Coast Road by Alan Murrin (Harper Via, June 4) - Set in 1994 in Ireland, this poignant debut novel is about the lives of women in a claustrophobic coast town and the search for independence in a society that seeks to limit it.

• The Last Twelve Miles by Erica Robuck (Sourcebooks, June 4) - 1926. Washington, D.C. The Coast Guard is losing the Prohibition Rum War, but they have a new, secret weapon to crack smuggler codes, intercept traffic, and destroy the rum trade one skiff at a time. That secret weapon is a 5'2" mastermind in heels, who also happens to be a wife and mother: Mrs. Elizebeth Smith Friedman, one half of the husband-and-wife pair who invented cryptanalysis

• The Material by Camille Bordas (Random House, June 11) - A funny and profound novel about an MFA program for stand up comics. This story examines life through the eyes of a reluctantly assembled ensemble, a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh and the longing to make others laugh even harder.

• I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol (PRH, June 11) - Set in Paris, this is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.

• One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon (Knopf, June 11) - A hotly-anticipated and endlessly provocative new thriller of race and privilege set in an all-Black gated community

• Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper, June 18) - A moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

• The Cautious Traveler’s Guide To the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks (Flatiron Books, June 18) - For fans of Piranesi and The Midnight Library, a stunning historical fantasy novel set on a grand express train, about a group of passengers on a dangerous journey across a magical landscape. **I LOVED Piranesi and The Midnight Library & books set on trains is a favorite setting I want more of in my reading life

• Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan (W.W. Norton & Company, June 18) Campbell Flynn, art historian, professor, and fêted fixture of the literati, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public--yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much

• The Paris Vendetta by Shan Serafin (Mysterious Press, June 25) - A pulse-pounding thrill ride through central Europe's most beautiful cities--Paris and Amsterdam--that exposes the rot beneath their gorgeous facades.

Did any of these catch your eye? Let me know in the comments what new release books you’re looking forward to reading in June!