The Best Books to Read This July

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This month, pack in your beach bag a heist novel, a biography of Jackie Kennedy, or a thrilling tale of a murderous librarian. Here, Town & Country's picks for the 12 best books to read this July. (More summer reading recommendations here.)

Jackie: Public, Private, Secret

This is celebrity biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli’s second book on Jackie Kennedy (his first, Jackie, Janet & Lee was about Jackie, her mother, and her sister). Is there anything new to say about one of the most famous women of the 20th century? This promises to be a comprehensive look at her life based on hundreds of interviews and never-before-released material from the JFK Library. Some juicy tidbits: her cold feet before her wedding to Jack, the time she considered meeting Maria Callas, Ari’s mistress, and the nude photo scandal created by a family member selling her pictures.

The Stolen Coast

In a sleepy Massachusetts coastal town one summer, Jack is helping his father, a retired spy, help fugitives on the run. When Elena, a former love interest, reappears and asks her to help steal millions of raw diamonds, Jack reluctantly helps her plan a heist. It's a mesmerizing, stylish novel that you won't be able to put down.

Crook Manifesto

Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Colson Whitehead revisits the main character from his 2021 book, Harlem Shuffle, in this exciting new novel set in 1970s New York City. Ex-fence/current furniture store owner Ray Carney has gone on the straight and narrow and hopes to stay that way despite persistent efforts of his former partners in crime. Whitehead takes Carney through a series of thrilling escapades and along the way illuminates a neighborhood and community that is changing rapidly around him.

Little Monsters

Set in Cape Cod, Adrienne Brodeur's Little Monsters tells the tale of recently-estranged siblings Ken and Abby who set out to organize a 70th birthday party for their father. On the surface, their family has it all—the money, the parties, and more—but when you dig a little deeper, the family secrets and betrayal surfaces. Brodeur draws on the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel to frame the story, to give you a sense of the complicated sibling dynamic at play here.

Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud

The actor Ben McKenzie, who appeared in The O.C. and Gotham, became obsessed with cryptocurrency during the pandemic, first as a possible investment and then as the subject for a book. The well-timed Easy Money, written with the financial journalist Jacob Silverman, casts a skeptical and incredulous eye on the many ways digital currencies have been promoted in recent years and how their most devoted fans ignored systemic faults and warning signs of possible collapse.

All-Night Pharmacy

"Spending time with my sister, Debbie, was like buying acid off a guy you met on a bus," begins Ruth Madievsky's All-Night Pharmacy, a propulsive tale of two sisters in Los Angeles. After our unnamed 18-year-old narrator commits a drunken act of violence, Debbie disappears. What results is a gritty coming-of-age story as our narrator searches for herself and tries to get clean.

How Can I Help You

Margo's coworkers think she is a small-town librarian. No one knows she's fleeing the police, after a string of patients died in her care when she was a nurse. No one, that is, until Patricia joins the library staff—and begins to pick up on Margo's oddities. What begins is a cat-and-mouse between the two librarians, told from their alternating perspectives. A fascinating, fun thriller set at a local library.

Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles

In the early aughts, American Apparel was inescapable. The L.A.-based brand might have sold mostly basics, but what it was really shilling was a lifestyle—young, care free, effortlessly stylish. In her new memoir, Kate Flannery raises the curtain on what it was really like to work for the brand at the height of its powers, and to enter the work force hoping to change the world only to find it trying to change you. It's a funny, insightful look back at a defining moment and a meditation on the perils of growing up.

The Vegan

How do you right a wrong? The question takes a mind-bending turn at the hands of Andrew Lipstein, whose latest novel centers on a rising hedge fund titan named Herschel Caine, whose path to becoming a master of the universe is all-clear—until a prank goes terribly wrong and leads him down a spiral of guilt and shame. How does he find his moral center again? With the help of a neighborhood dog.

The Librarianist

Bob is a retired librarian who, one day, helps a confused elderly woman find her way back to a senior care center. Soon, he is wrapped up in the world of the retirement home, but not before long, the reader is thrown back into Bob's history and life story. A quiet, melancholy novel, one that is perfect for long summer evenings.

Silver Nitrate

The bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic returns with Silver Nitrate, the story of Montserrat, a talented sound editor in '90s Mexico City. When her childhood best friend, Tristán, a former soap opera stars, falls in with cult horror director Abel Urueta, she gets sucked in too. Urueta, who believes his unfinished film is cursed, wants Tristán and Montserrat to help him reverse the curse and finish the movie. An engaging book that deftly balances supernatural, horror, romance, and the business of moviemaking.

Business or Pleasure

This steamy romance novel features Finna, a struggling actor, who is stuck attending fandom conventions promoting his cult-status werewolf show from years ago, and his ghostwriter, Chandler, who aspires to write her own mystery novels. Finn and Chandler had actually met once before—on a terrible one-night stand—so tension bubbles throughout the course of their partnership (and Chandler agrees to give Finn tips on how he can be better in the bedroom). A sex-positive and tender romance that features frank discussions of mental health that you won't want to miss.

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