June Books on Deck

Summer reading season is upon us and I've got 13 new releases to tell you about.

Here are all the June books I’m excited about. And in true me fashion, it only features the books I legit want to—and hope to— read this month. Sorry, everyone, no Maggie O’Farrell or Ann Patchett on my list. No shade to them, but you already knew they weren’t gonna be here.

This month I’ve got 13 books for you, and while that feels like a lot, I did actually cut a lot of things out that painfully I wanted to keep. I think I had a hard time cutting this month because I am in my mood-reading era after finishing my Nonfiction Reading Guide, so every novel sorta sounds good to me in a way that they won’t in three weeks. So lots and lots of books made the list this month, and they’re all not exactly “Traci books.”

The 2026 Nonfiction Reading Guide

Hopefully, that means good things for you all, or it could mean you’ll be annoyed with this list and never read another thing I write. Which, honestly, could be a win for you.

There are still books on my main spreadsheet list¹ that didn’t make this list, and to see those books and everything else I’m excited about for the remainder of 2026², check out my #teampreorder list on Bookshop.org.

The books here are listed alphabetically by pub date, and anything I’ve read (or at least started) appears in bold.

• Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess by Ben Mezrich (June 2)
  The biggest scandal in chess, you say? Sign me up.

• They All Fall in Love in the End by Haili Blassingame (June 2)
  This book is being billed as a messy Black protagonist in her 20s in a forbidden love triangle. So, you know, I will be reading at least one novel this month.

• Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment, and Extraordinary Survival by Justine van der Leun (June 2)
  A few authors I respect kept telling me about this book, which is always a good sign. Then I started it and it is fantastic! It follows three women in prison for killing their abusers. It is tight and intense and really well done.

• City on the Edge: Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco by Jonathan Webber (June 9)
  You know I love a Bay Area book. Ideally, it would be about Oakland, but I guess we sometimes have to give San Francisco its time in the sun. In my lifetime, SF has changed for the worse due to tech companies and the deals made with them. I’m hoping this book helps me understand the recent evolution of the City by the Bay.

• Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register by Ann Larson (June 9)
  In The Stacks Pack, we jokingly/lovingly talk a lot about books about grocery stores, and this new one is less about the store and more about the people who work there. Larson gets a job at a supermarket during the pandemic, and she shares her experiences while reporting about low-wage workers and the industry.

• Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life by Dusty Baker (June 9)
  A memoir from baseball legend Dusty Baker. This is exactly what you want from a sports memoir—details of iconic moments, personal struggles, and anecdotes about icons.

• The Fervent Whites by De’Shawn Charles Winslow (June 9)
  A moody thriller in suburbia about race and class. I don’t want to know more about the plot, but so far, I’m already feeling pretty drawn in.

• Pool House by Mary H.K. Choi (June 9)
  A mother-daughter novel set in Hollywood that lingers in grief and resentment in really smart and interesting ways. This one is all vibes, and Choi knows how to do vibes so well.

• The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers by Carlos Barragán (June 9)
  An investigation into four “romance scammers” in Lagos, Nigeria that digs into why and how they scam. It was inspired by the author’s own mother getting caught up in one of these long cons.

• The Missed Connection by Tia Williams (June 16)
  While I don’t read a ton of romance, I will read a Tia Williams romance. She’s back with a travel romance about a woman who meets a man on a flight to Paris that leads to an international manhunt (sexy).

• Trash!: A Garbageman's Story by Simon Pare-Poupart (June 16)
  A memoir-plus about life in waste management and how we should be thinking about waste more broadly, from a sociologist and garbage man.

• The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself by Hettie O’Brien (June 23)
  Last year’s Bad Company was one of my faves, and this year, we’re getting another book on private equity, so please, inject this into my veins.

• The Au Pair by Teddy Wayne (June 30)
  I so rarely read genre fiction, but I do love a domestic thriller, and this one about a Norwegian au pair, a writer, and his wife, has captured my attention.

That is it for me in June. Feels like a lot, but I’m excited to let my mood dictate where my reading goes this month. Please tell me what June books you’re really looking forward to.

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1. This is the working document I use where anytime a book sounds good to me I add it to the list. I don’t read everything, obviously, but it is my working document for all things books for a given year and informs this newsletter, the podcast, and whatever else I’m doing.

2. And into 2027 now, too!