Last month, a number of American newspapers published a bizarre, AI-generated summer reading list, which included recommendations for 10 fake novels.
Meanwhile, at the Star, we reached out to (actual) writers, poets and illustrators to compile a (100 per cent human-curated) selection of (completely real) novels and short story collections — both new and old — to read at the beach or in a park this summer.
Enjoy, and leave your own recommendation in the comment section below.
‘Lake Burntshore’ by Aaron Kreuter (2025)
I grew up in a First Nation in the heart of Ontario’s “cottage country” and have always had conflicted views of summer camps for affluent city kids in my home territory. It’s a phenomenon rife with contradictions, and “Lake Burntshore” unpacks the complicated realities of enjoying paradise at the expense of others in compelling and even funny ways. This new novel is fun, intelligent, political and, ultimately, respectful of the land I love so much. —Waubgeshig Rice, author of ”Moon of the Turning Leaves”
‘The Book of Records’ by Madeleine Thien (2025)
In “The Book of Records,” Madeleine Thien tells the story of a young girl and her father who are forced to make their home in “the Sea,” a mysterious refugee camp where philosophers and poets from centuries past mingle with migrants from around the world. I could tell you that this novel is, in my opinion, Thien’s finest. I could tell you I’m in awe of her ability to construct such a rich, detailed world, so full of unforgettable characters and ideas and unexpected movements through time and lineage. And while all of that is true, what strikes me the most about this novel is how engaged it is with our capacity to care for one another, our capacity for love. It’s stunning, a story to disappear into. —Omar El Akkad, author of “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”
‘Minor Detail’ by Adania Shibli (2017)
This incisive novel follows a Ramallah woman’s research into the 1949 gang rape and murder of a Bedouin-Palestinian girl by IDF soldiers 25 years earlier, on the exact date of her own birth — a “minor detail” that haunts her amidst the major details of the tragedy and Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine. Most entrancing is the novel’s use of images, which echo between past and present, showing how the violence of the Nakba ricochets through time, and mirroring the narrator’s anxiety in navigating the constant surveillance and checkpoints of a settler-colonial state. —Cassidy McFadzean, poet and author of ”Crying Dress”
‘Fifteen Dogs’ by André Alexis (2015)
“Fifteen Dogs” is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and it’s rightfully being seen as a new Canadian classic. Set in Toronto, it follows a pack of dogs who are gifted (or maybe burdened) with human consciousness. Sharp, funny and extremely readable, it’ll make you look a little differently at every dog you see in High Park this summer. —Gabrielle Drolet, author of ”Look Ma, No Hands: A Chronic Pain Memoir”
‘We, the Kindling’ by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek (2025)
In “We, the Kindling,” Otoniya J. Okot Bitek interlaces the lives of three women who were abducted as schoolgirls by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda in the 1990s. There is so much care in the way Bitek alchemizes living memory. It’s folk tale, documentary and precise prose woven into a transformative novel. —Valérie Bah, author of “Subterrane”
‘Dubliners’ by James Joyce (1914)
If, like me, you sometimes find yourself bringing books home from the beach with their pages full of sand, maybe you want to spend some time this summer reading a cheap paperback. Perhaps something that can be easily found in a used bookstore, maybe even something so old that it’s in the public domain! I read “Dubliners” on vacation recently and was delighted to learn (after many years of avoiding him) that James Joyce can be both accessible and funny. The stories — each set in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century, a time at which the titular “Dubliners” were struggling to assert a national identity while navigating romances, career troubles and many trips to the pub — are in perfect bite-sized portions to enjoy between dips in your ocean, lake or pool of choice, and there are plenty of passages that lend themselves well to dramatic readings for your friends and loved ones over a cold beverage, or maybe around a campfire. It’s summer, after all. —Mattea Roach, host of CBC’s Bookends
‘The New Internationals’ by David Wright Faladé (2025)
David Wright Faladé’s “The New Internationals” — in which a love triangle in postwar Paris reveals the necessity, and the limits, of new beginnings — is a novel that is fiercely beautiful and fiercely feminist. In a world that is broken, Faladé finds his way toward “the words beneath the words” which might, across time, “lend substance to the absence.” —Madeleine Thien, author of ”The Book of Records”
‘Don’t Look Now and Other Stories’ by Daphne du Maurier (2006)
To read Daphne du Maurier’s stunningly immersive and alive prose is to lose yourself. Though you might be familiar with a couple of the tales in this collection — “Don’t Look Now” and “The Birds” have been made into major motion pictures — it’s more than worthwhile experiencing du Maurier’s worlds on her own terms. With a sharp wit and preternaturally firm grasp on what makes us squirm, du Maurier’s stories are beautifully unsettling not for the horrors her characters come up against, but for her explorations of the ways psyches contort and bend, maybe even snap, in the face of the eerie. These stories — my favourite is “Kiss Me Again, Stranger” — skewer our expectations of the monstrous, nature and even knowledge itself, and in doing so, leave us stranded among our feeble notions about the mechanics of the world, alone and afraid and powerless in the face of the mysteries we thought we solved. —Alisha Mughal, author of ”It Can’t Rain All the Time: The Crow”
‘Pnin’ by Vladimir Nabokov (1957)
I can think of few things further from the twin contemporary terrors of resurgent authoritarianism and heedless technophilia than Nabokov’s supremely attentive depiction of the small, orderly life of pedantic Professor Timofey Pnin. “Pnin” is a comic masterpiece that spares nothing in its assessment of its protagonist’s foibles and yet holds him up as an exemplar of humanity and decency in dark times. “It was the world that was absent-minded and it was Pnin whose business it was to set it straight.” —Zak Black, freelance book critic for the Star
‘Her First Palestinian’ by Saeed Teebi (2022)
”Her First Palestinian” is a collection of short stories about Palestinians navigating exile life in Canada, and the storytelling is sharp, masterful, beautifully cynical and often hilarious. It’s a stunning debut and I came out of the book better than when I went in. —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of ”Theory of Water”
‘My Friends’ by Hisham Matar (2024)
Exile is “a thermometer of our times,” ruminates the narrator of Matar’s quietly magnificent new novel, and ever since I read that line I’ve had trouble disagreeing. Matar’s novel tells the story of three Libyans living in London, who in various ways fly too close to the sun — donning masks to protest the autocracy that forced them to flee their country, for one example, or writing subversive fiction, for another — and who experience the lifelong after-effects of their audacity. A novel about friendship formed in the psychic shadow of the irretrievable home, this is a work of great subtlety and depth. —Saeed Teebi, author of ”Her First Palestinian”
‘Exhalation’ by Ted Chiang (2019)
“Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so,” Ted Chiang writes in “Exhalation,” a fantastical thought experiment in which a scientist from a futuristic universe comes to grips with the inevitability of his own death. Throughout the nine short stories found in this collection, Chiang grapples earnestly with the upheavals and ethical dilemmas sparked by nascent technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and bioethics, in order to probe eternal questions about time, free will and mortality. Unlike other science fiction writers, who often get bogged down by dark visions of dystopia or societal decay, Chiang flips the genre on its head, infusing his stories with a distinct sense of optimism, and an unwavering faith in the ultimate goodness of humanity. Deeply philosophical but riveting, “Exhalation” is a perfect antidote to these anxious times. —Richie Assaly, Toronto Star culture reporter
‘Enter Ghost’ by Isabella Hammad (2023)
In Isabella Hammad’s “Enter Ghost,” readers follow a Palestinian theatre troupe as they attempt to put on an Arabic-language version of “Hamlet” in the West Bank. The troupe is made up of Palestinian actors hailing from within the borders of 1948 Israel, the West Bank, as well as the more far-flung diaspora. As they rehearse, deal with funding setbacks, and cope with the daily reality of being under Israeli occupation, Hammad asks important questions about the connection between narrative art and protest. This is an absolute must-read! —Aaron Kreuter, author of “Lake Burntshore”
‘Call Me by Your Name’ by André Aciman (2007)
While I don’t typically reach for romance novels, this one is an essential read, set against the backdrop of a lush Italian summer in the 1980s. It’s a season of sun-drenched days and languid afternoons, charged with slow-burning tension between shame and desire, and a queer teen’s sexual awakening. André Aciman’s Proustian prose turns the season into a metaphor for the intense yet ephemeral first love. Extra points for its retrospective lens and an aching sense of nostalgia. —Su Chang, author of ”Immortal Woman”
‘The Bear’ by Claire Cameron (2014)
Claire Cameron’s book is a fictionalized tale, narrated in the voice of a five-year-old, of a real-life story that fascinated the Canadian novelist: a bear attacked and killed a man and woman in Algonquin Park. Cameron’s fascination also informed her recent memoir, “How to Survive a Bear Attack,” in which she heads north to find out the truth about the attack, even as she deals with a cancer diagnosis. If you want to mine more about bears and their place in our national psyche, you could also pick up Marian Engel’s 1976 novel “Bear,” where a woman takes a bear as her lover. —Deborah Dundas, Star editor and author of ”On Class”
‘A Mouth Full of Salt’ by Reem Gaafar (2024)
Reem Gaafar’s “A Mouth Full of Salt” follows three women in Northern Sudan: two in the 1980s, in the aftermath of a small boy drowning in the Nile, and one in the early 1940s, a single mother in a country on the edge of independence. It’s as thoughtful as it is compelling, balancing tragedy with vivid story. There is much to learn from this debut about the world around us and the history underneath it. —Anjula Gogia and Saul Freedman-Lawson, booksellers at Another Story Bookshop
‘Milk White Steed’ by Michael Kennedy (2025)
Funny, cryptic short stories about community, folklore and language, and one of the most impressive comics debuts in recent memory. Connections to Ben Katchor, Paul Gilroy and Gilbert Hernandez came to mind while reading it, but Kennedy has a distinct enough voice that I could imagine him plugging into an entirely different set of influences. “Duke Ellington on Mars,” one of the 10 pieces found in this collection, might be a perfectly constructed comic. —Michael DeForge, comics artist and illustrator
‘Anti-Woo’ by Stephen Potter (1965)
An unmissable instalment in the British satirist’s Lifemanship series of books, “Anti-Woo” is bursting with double-edged realizations about the perils of romance. A series of methods are described to avoid the awkward “dangers of compatibility” — all entanglements of the heart are not worth the trouble they invite into your life. It will soon be the season of summer flings, and love-starved readers would be wise to brush up on their Potterisms if they hope to guard against “energy-dense” attachments. —Jean Marc Ah-Sen, author of “Grand Menteur”
