Drumroll please! It’s almost time for our annual MMD Summer Reading Guide: a beloved tradition and the best part of the whole reading year! This year is extra special for us as it will be our fifteenth edition—a milestone I never saw coming back in 2012 when I launched the first Guide. Year after year, putting together the Summer Reading Guide is a highlight of my year (and spans the better part of it—I started reading potential titles way back in October!). And in that time, I’ve been honored and thrilled to see how many readers turn to our Guide as a trusted gateway to summer reading joy.
My intention with the Guide has always been to come alongside you as you discover good books that let you escape into new worlds, and also enrich your life in meaningful ways. The Guide is an aid toward cultivating a reading season full of abundance, ease, and joy, one that is anti-frantic and anti-FOMO and puts a heaping helping of potential 4- and 5-star books on your readerly horizons. My hope is you’ll discover or learn more about books that sound exactly like what you already like to read, and that you’ll also find ideas and encouragement to branch out to books outside your usual lane.
For 2026, our loose theme is “reading retreat,” because I know I’m not the only one who dreams of getting away with good books (and good people) right now. This year’s Guide includes the staples regular readers have come to expect plus new-for-2026 features. In the pages of this year’s Guide you’ll find:
- 35 new and carefully selected titles, releasing between April and August 2026
- Offbeat and whimsical categories to help you think differently about what books may be right for you this summer. (I had so much fun with the categories this year!)
- “For fans of” backlist recommendations for every book to both help you understand which books are right for you and to help you discover older titles you may also enjoy
- Reading retreat best practices from our terrific team
- A splashy anniversary feature looking back on 15 years of the SRG
- The Awesome on Audio recommendations you have come to love and trust
- Gorgeous (but relatable) custom photography for your aesthetic enjoyment
2026 Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing Party
We’re releasing this year’s Guide on Thursday, May 14.
Once again, our 2026 SRG is an included perk for our community members in the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club and What Should I Read Next Patreon communities, along with Unboxing access.
And once again, we’re offering an a la carte option for our 2026 SRG + Unboxing access, for those who don’t have the time or inclination to join a community.
We will deliver the guide to all members and our a la carte readers at 10:00am EDT on May 14, and will host two Unboxing Parties that day at 1:00pm and 8:00pm Eastern time. Our Unboxing event isn’t essential—all the info you need is in the Guide—but is included and a whole lot of fun, plus all kinds of useful as you’ll gain more nuance and context than you will from the Guide alone. In these 90+ minute live sessions, I share every title in the guide and why I chose it. Unboxing is live and unscripted: choose the one that best fits your schedule (or come twice, we won’t stop you!). While my book talk is substantially similar in each session, the live Q&A will differ.
If you can’t join us live, no worries—we’ve got you covered; we share a video recording with everyone who opts for Unboxing access.
There are three four ways to get the 2026 MMD Summer Reading Guide:
- Join the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club.
- Support the What Should I Read Next Patreon.
- Purchase the guide and Unboxing access a la carte.
- Purchase a print-only option. (Unboxing access not included.)
Get a print 2026 Summer Reading Guide magazine!
This worked so well in 2025 we’re doing it again: we’re professionally printing the guide for you! Because we’re ordering a high-quality magazine in bulk, significantly dropping the price per print copy, readers who desire a print Guide are finding this option to be both convenient and economical.
Your Summer Reading Guide purchase includes a digital PDF of the full Guide and access to the live Unboxing events. But if you want to hold onto a printed magazine-style Guide that you can flip through all summer, leave on your coffee table, mark up and dog-ear, and look back on it in a year or two when you’re wondering what to add to your library holds, then add a printed SRG magazine to your order.
If you would like, we are also offering the option to purchase the print guide ONLY. This magazine-only option does not include our digital PDF Guide or Unboxing access.
Timing note: these will ship via USPS first-class mail AFTER May 14. These typically arrive within two days to two weeks of mailing depending on where you live. (We wish it weren’t so, but because of the current uncertain shipping landscape, this option is available for U.S. mailing addresses only.)
We’ve rounded up more info and answered your most frequently asked FAQ on this page. We hope you’ll choose the option that’s right for you.
What’s the difference between Book Club and Patreon?
Great question! If you’d like to listen to MMD community manager Ginger Horton and I talk about the difference, we made this Patreon bonus episode publicly available to all: By popular request: Anne and Ginger talk Patreon vs Book Club. It’s a fun and informative conversation.
Our communities have different scopes and emphases: we think of our Patreon offerings as being bite-sized, while MMD Book Club is more like a buffet. We encourage you to choose the one that best works for you and your reading life.
Our WSIRN Patreon community is an extension of the What Should I Read Next podcast, and offers Friday bonus episodes (e.g., One Great Book, Mini Matchmaking, Industry Insights), peeks behind the scenes, and additional curated book recommendations to our readers in that space. Patreon is audio-first, which means you can mostly participate when it’s convenient for you. We host two events each semester in Patreon: one seasonal preview (like Summer Reading Guide Unboxing) and one additional event like Ask Us Anything or Live Mini Matchmaking. Our patrons also influence the show by offering input on future episode themes and guests and voting on our episode titles.
Our slate of MMD Book Club offerings is more robust, which is why we call it a buffet: we seek to offer lots of great literary content in this space, and don’t expect you to put everything on your plate! We host many live events in this space, including monthly book and author discussions, regular classes on literature and the reading life, and community events like our Readers’ Days and Weekends, Best Books of Summer, Reading Life Rehab, Readalongs, Join Us for Journaling, and more. Our live events are video-driven, but you don’t need to attend live to participate: much like Unboxing, we record our events so you can watch on your schedule. Our custom-built member site also sets Book Club apart: our 24/7 forums (and the app) makes it easy to enjoy all the book talk your heart desires, and connect with other readers who love books as much as you do.
A la carte access
Once again we’re offering a la carte access for those who don’t have the time or inclination to join a community. Your ticket includes our full PDF guide, your invite to our live Unboxing sessions, and your Unboxing replay. Get your a la carte ticket here.
If you’re not able or do not wish to join one of our member communities or purchase the guide separately, please know that we’ll keep with our longstanding tradition of sharing our Minimalist Summer Reading Guide on the blog (here’s the 2025 Minimalist SRG for reference), and I’ll share many summer reading titles here and on What Should I Read Next all summer long.
Thanks so much for your support over the years. I can’t wait to share our 2026 guide and to hear how it shapes your reading life this summer. I’m so looking forward to the reading season to come, and I hope you are, too.
Thanks for reading, and most of all, for allowing me to be a part of your summer reading.
Anne
