Celebrity book club picks for July 2026

by Jenny Jackson

🎧 Audiobook

An ambitious young woman insinuates herself into a tight-knit social set, shaking up friendships and marriages in a small seaside town. A frothy novel of love, money, sex, and friendship. 

🌟 From Jenna: “The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson is a delicious summer read. You will read it at the beach or in the park, and it will fill you with old memories... It made me think of my own oldest friendships.”

by Stephanie Dray

🎧 Audiobook

In time for the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the United States comes a sweeping, intimate portrayal of Abigail Adams—wife of one president and mother to another—whose wit, willpower, and wisdom helped shape the fledgling republic. A stunning historical novel with modern-day implications.

🌟 From Reese: “Prepare to dive into a historical fiction about the fearless woman who shaped a nation.”

by Sophie Kim

🎧 Audiobook

Fantasy meets sports romance in this sizzling slow-burn novel in which the disgraced star of a brutal magical sport must team up with the rival who destroyed her career.

🌟 From Sunnie Reads: “think: enemies to lovers with tension that will (possibly) ruin your life, and a story you won’t stop thinking about after the last page. we already know you’re going to be obsessed with this one ☁️💜”

by Daniel Mason

🎧 Audiobook

A rollicking, lyrical novel about a year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont), leaving all the comforts of home behind.

by I. V. Marie

🎧 Audiobook

The future of Blackwood Academy—and the entire afterlife—is at stake in the must-read sequel to the viral dark fantasy sensation Immortal Consequences.

🌟 From GMA: “Ruinous Ends by I. V. Marie is our July #GMABookClub YA pick — bringing dark academia, dangerous secrets, epic romance and a battle that could change everything.”

by Meg Charlton

🎧 Audiobook

When a mysterious signal from the edge of the solar system reignites the world’s obsession with extraterrestrial contact, two former child stars linked by a decades-old disappearance must reunite to unravel the truth behind their past—and discover whether friendship, memory, and humanity can survive the unknown.

🌟 From Belletrist: “Voyagers is a novel about friendship and family, celebrity and conspiracy, memory and mystery. It explores what it means to live by one story before, at last, having the courage to tell a different one.”

by Lea Ypi

🎧 Audiobook

A reflection on "freedom" in a dramatic, beautifully written memoir of the end of Communism in the Balkans.

🌟 From Dua: “Part memoir, part political history, it’s an extraordinary account of growing up in Albania during the collapse of communism and the turbulent years that followed.”

by Ada Hoffmann

🎧 Audiobook

A script supervisor for an AI media conglomerate is caught between her intense need for an orderly life and her deeper, darker queer desires. From the creator of the Outside trilogy, a heartfelt interplanetary epic of identity, longing... and space pirates who smuggle inappropriate stories.

🌟 From Raegan: “July’s pick might be one of the most thought-provoking books we’ve read yet. Think technology, creativity, and the stories we tell about ourselves; it’s the kind of book that keeps unfolding the more you sit with it.”

by Virginia Woolf

🎧 Audiobook

Six children—Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis—meet in a garden close to the sea. The book follows them as they develop from childhood to maturity and follow different passions and ambitions; their voices are interspersed with interludes from the timeless and unifying chorus of nature.

🌟 From TeaTime: “This month we’re reading one of Dakota’s favorites... It’s truly incredible.”

by Éric Rohmer

Witty banter, lust, ennui, and an undercurrent of violence underlie a seemingly paradisiacal summer on the eve of World War II, in this landmark translation of the first and only novel by Éric Rohmer, the French New Wave's most prolific and beloved filmmaker.

by Mathias Énard

🌟 From John: “A small, perfect book. Michelangelo, angry at the Pope, takes a bad gig for good money in Constantinople. It reads like a beautiful 16th-century detective story. It’s short and wild.”

by Juliano Zaffino

🌟 From Florence: “It follows the five De Luca children, whose recently widowed mother Sophie moves them halfway across the world to live with her childhood sweetheart Derek. As Sophie attempts to rebuild their lives, Derek can’t shake the sense that something isn’t quite right about his step-children — from Angelo’s anger to Biagia’s silence, and the old family story of Jules coming back from the dead. Using shifting perspectives and creeping suspense, Zaffino explores grief, trauma, and how the stories we tell about ourselves and our families shape us forever.”

by William Faulkner

🎧 Audiobook

A true 20th-century classic from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury: the famed harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother.