Top Ten Books On My Monsoon 2026 To-Read List

I've been an avid reader since I was 10 years old and I've gone through a lot of different reading phases. I thought I didn't have any more phases to discover, but this year has surprised me.

I joined a casual book club group that discusses books every week and they're reading such a wide variety of books and there's good intellectual conversation—it makes me want to step out of my comfort zone and the energy of the group makes me excited about all the books I want to read.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt is "top ten books on my summer 2026 to-read list". We are actually at the end of summer (and desperately waiting for rain which has been delayed due to El Niño and global warming...)/on the brink of the monsoon season here in India. I took the liberty to update the title to match my season 🌧️

TBR lists have actually never worked for me because I'm a total mood reader. However, there are a handful of books that are on my mind and I kind of want to read all of them in the next two days 😂 So, grab a drink (I have a protein shake since I just finished a long workout lol) and settle down, let's yap about books 📚

1. I Could Give You The Moon by Ann Liang

I've read ALL of Ann Liang's books except the latest one and I enjoyed every single one of them. I even wrote a massive post talking about each Ann Liang book and her works as a whole. She's one of the very few authors whose oeuvre doesn't have a single miss for me. So, of course, I'm massively excited to read her latest release.

To be honest, the book's premise isn't exactly up my alley but I've seen how Ann Liang writes emotions and personal crisis so I'm intrigued to see what she does with this story.

I meant to get to this book soon after it released but I got distracted with life and other books haha. Besides, new releases aren't immediately available or affordable in India so I usually end up waiting for a while anyway. In fact, the paperback for this is sooooo expensive on Amazon that the first time I saw it, I closed the site on reflex. I haven't seen it in bookstores yet either. The Kindle version is priced like a regular paperback but hey, at least it's a bearable price.

2. To Love a Lady by Gabrielle Meyer

I've read and LOVED the author's Timeless series (I still randomly think about books 1 and 3 at times). I did not know that the author had another series out! I checked out her Instagram account recently to look for news about further Timeless books and saw this other series highlighted.

To Love a Lady is a part of Dollar Princess series. I believe it's a series featuring stories that take place in The Gilded Age when lots of rich American brides married British aristocrats who were sliding down to financial ruin, making it a marriage-of-convenience with title gained in exchange for money. I honestly have no clue about any history about this period and I've not really been interested in it.

However, I love the way this author uses random parts of history to create wonderful characters who are on the sidelines of big history, and how she gives us information about the research she's done. I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy the books because I've enjoyed all 7 books in Timeless series so far.

This one is 4 books long currently and 2 of them are on Kindle Unlimited so they're easily available to me and I'll probably read them soon.

3. White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I've had this book on my shelf for almost a couple of years now. One of my friends has been lowkey pushing me to read it the entire time. Recently, a couple of new friends read and raved about it. The book club I joined has been talking about it multiple times too, mainly when talking about beginner Russian Literature.

After hearing about it so many times, and since I literally have the book already and it's only 100 pages, it's high time I read it. If it's not hard to read, I can see myself finishing it on a leisurely Sunday. It shouldn't take long even otherwise. After all, I did finish Anna Karenina in a month or so. This should be easy, right?

I'd love to get to Dostoevsky's other books eventually too so reading this would motivate me to pick them up. I'm mainly eyeing Crime and Punishment 👀

4. Letters From The Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop by Kenji Ueda

I picked this up on a whim when I visited the bookstore sometime early this year. I liked that it had letters and it intrigued me that it's from a stationery shop. It was a few months after I had visited Japan and I was already missing its stationery shops since there are very few decent ones here. This book called to me.

Buying books is different from reading them, though. It's been languishing on my shelf for months. I honestly don't even remember the premise. I assume it's similar to the other trending Japanese novels which have multiple cosy short stories about how a space or an act transforms/helps characters that are struggling.

I want to finish it soon, lowkey so that I can return it and get more new books 🤪. It's pretty thin too so it shouldn't take me too long.

5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

I have been totally out of the internet book community lately—I've not been using Instagram for years and recently got out of touch with YouTube and blogs too—but apparently this book has been trending recently? I heard about it in the book club I joined. One of the members read and raved about it. I loved the way he described the plot—mainly the how the ex-girlfriend's cat named Princess Donut is a main character 😂

I thought I'd read this sometime later but the person read book 2 and the anecdote he shared from that seemed even funnier, making me want to read it sooner. The paperbacks are super expensive. I took a shot and looked it up and was elated to find that it's on Kindle Unlimited! The entire series! It's surprising how random cool/mainstream books are on KU (at least until they blow up enough and the author removes them from it). I'm determined to read it before it is removed.

6. The Vegetarian by Han Kang

This isn't a newly popular book or an unknown book. I've seen it around before and it never appealed to me. Recently, when I joined the book club, a handful of readers read it and had hours long discussions about it. It came up multiple times when I was present. Every person had a lot to say even if they didn't like it.

The next time I went to the bookstore and was browsing for short books, this caught my eye. It was affordable too. So I got it. I want to read it soon so that I can discuss it with people who still have a fresh memory about it.

I actually have no idea what it is about other than what they discussed. They didn't mention the spoilers or describe the book when I was there, though. So I'm still kind of in the dark. Apparently it's a bit gory? The only thing I know for sure is that it has multiple POVs. Let's see whether I like it.

7. யானை டாக்டர் (Elephant Doctor) by Jeyamohan

I've been consistently working on my Tamizh reading and writing. I decided on a new goal to read a whole Tamizh book this year and looked for recommendations for beginners. This book came up multiple times. It sounds pretty simple and cute. It's also only 64 pages which is super helpful 😂

I already started reading it. It's taking me quite some time to get through it because there's a lot of new vocabulary, I'm still a noob at mapping written words to spoken words, and I'm not yet good at reading whole words in one go let alone whole sentences. Basically, I'm a total beginner and I take about 20 minutes to get through one page. I'm progressing, though! And it's not too hard.

The best part is that it's on Kindle Unlimited! I tried finding it in bookstores but I didn't. Not surprising since the city I live in and the city I consider my home aren't in Tamil Nadu. I was relieved to see it on KU. It helps to that when I highlight basic words, Kindle pulls up translations too. It doesn't work all the time but it's enough to help. I'm also reading it to my mom who corrects me and explains things.

At my current pace (took me 2 weeks to read 10%), I am hopeful that I'll be able to finish it by the time monsoon season ends.

8. Foster by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan was never on my radar. The first time I joined the book club here, one of the members recommended Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These and I was intrigued enough to pick it up the next week. It was so good! I really liked it. I loved how the writing was concise and didn't over explain—refreshing considering the current trend of leaving nothing to interpretation.

Every person in the group (who has read the author's works) said that Foster is even better and that the book still haunts their minds. That's exactly my kind of book. Foster is also a short book at only 96 pages so I can finish it in one sitting on a good day.

I want to read it soon and I have high hopes for it.

9. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

I added this book to my TBR immediately after seeing Cath rave about it in her vlogs. I meant to get to it soon but I somehow didn't. The premise sounds kind of dull, honestly, so I always ended up picking another book over it when I considered by TBR.

Someone at the book club brought it up recently. She loved it and raved about it for about 10 minutes. She gave a deeper explanation about the story and the characters and the writing. Those things were not in the premise. Her description has rekindled my interest in the book so I'm bumping it up to the priority TBR.

10. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

This is a classic that I've seen around for a long time. I was not a classics person for most of that time so I didn't consider picking it up and pretty much ignored talk about it. I've been slowly reading more classics over the past couple of years, with this year having the most classics yet.

A couple of new friends that I made in this city read this recently and avidly spoke about it on a group hangout. A few weeks later I saw someone with a t-shirt inspired by the book who said that it's their favourite novel. You know how seeing or hearing about something multiple times increases your interest in it? (Basically how marketing and social media works to sell stuff lol.) That happened. I'm now interested in the book.

It's another short novel at around 200 pages. I'm planning to borrow a copy from my friend or the library sometime next month or so.

chat with me!

What books are you looking forward to reading in the upcoming season/months? Do you read according to the season? Are there any books outside of your comfort zone on your mind?