Dr. Botti’s Summer Reading List '26
I have long resisted publicly sharing an annual summer reading lineup—and for a trio of good reasons! First, given the excellent recommendations that they suggest to me, I’m confident that my colleagues have a better sense of what’s worth reading in the summertime than I do. Second, there is so much good stuff out there that warrants our reading attention, and I do not want the narrowness of my list to suggest otherwise. And third, there’s the matter of hypocrisy: Over the past decade I have set a goal to read 10 books each and every summer, and I have achieved that goal exactly zero times.
But in view of what I have shared with the boys this year about the importance of reading—to our thinking, to our moral and emotional metabolism, to our democracy, to our shared imagination—it is probably time that I get over my insecurity and put a vacation syllabus on the record.
This summer, while I will doubtless examine articles and reports on professional concerns like artificial intelligence, masculinity, and adolescent wellness, the books I am aiming to read are less obviously instrumental in their orientation. They are, instead, titles that have been recommended to me by colleagues and families, gifted to me by relatives, and produced by very specific personal encounters. This is my summertime plan, but it need not (and should not!) be yours—I simply hope that no matter how busy you are this June, July, and August, you can find a bit of time to slow down, turn some pages, and enjoy all that a good book can bring into our lives. Happy reading!
Audition by Katie Kitamura: This was a present from a family member during the winter holidays, and offers a meditation on identity, relationships, and narrative itself. It was also a finalist for the Booker and Pulitzer Prizes, so someone I’m related to seems to have good taste.
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead: I enjoyed the author’s first two titles in his “Harlem Trilogy” of crime and family fiction set in the second half of the twentieth century; this third installment drops in late July.
Crisis of the Common Good by Chris Murphy: The author has perennially, graciously, and impressively hosted a visiting delegation of Browning boys in his Senate Office during our Eighth Grade trip to D.C.
How to Rule the World by Theo Baker: Written by a recently-graduated alumnus, this book chronicles a year of corporate power plays, administrative follies, and cultural mythmaking at Stanford University.
Martyr by Kaveh Akbar: This is a debut novel about an Iranian-American poet on a tricky psychological journey. I actually gave it as a gift three different times in the hopes that someone would tell me about it, but it seems--properly--that I need to read it myself..
The Searcher by Tana French: This is actually sitting on my wife’s nightstand, and I am tempted to swipe it. I love a good mystery novel; this one—featuring an ex-pat American detective on the job in rural Ireland—is the first in a series of three.
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray: I actually finished this book over Memorial Day Weekend, so I might be accused of a false start--but c’mon! I clearly need all the help I can get in getting to ten books, and this was a really good one: Wildly smart, trenchantly funny, and set at a boys’ school in Dublin.
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: This was an optional title in my first college literature class. I chose to skip over the Pulitzer Prize-winning author three decades ago, and need to remedy that mistake this summer.
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover: This is an older book—1968—put in front of me by a colleague. I’ve started it, and it’s a darkly comic, theologically surprising examination of an accountant who becomes dependent upon his creation: An early version of fantasy baseball.
Why Plato Matters Now by Angie Hobbs: Teaching philosophy in the Upper School this year got me musing on the relevance of ancient thinkers to our current political and moral ecology—and this work by a British philosopher seems like it might have something to say in that direction
And if you need a bonus title, I heartily recommend Beautiful Days, a short story collection by former Browning teacher and this year’s commencement speaker, Zach Williams!