Summer guide for new reading

With the coronavirus pandemic still raging across the country, this summer might not look a whole lot like summers past. There might not be any beach vacations, poolside cabanas, or barbecues in your socially-distanced future.

But there will still be plenty of great books to read.

This summer is looking to be a hot one, literally and literarily, with memoirs from Alex Trebek, Jane Fonda and Elijah Cummings; can’t-miss fiction, including David Mitchell’s “Utopia Avenue” Raven Leilani’s “Luster”; and, yes, even at long last a new “Twilight” book from Stephenie Meyer.

Here are 20 summer books we can’t wait to read, even if only on our own couch:

“The Girl from Widow Hills,” by Megan Miranda • Release date: June 23

• Arden Maynor became the famous “girl from Widow Hills” when a storm swept her away as a child and she was found alive days later, clinging to a storm drain. She grows up, leaves town and changes her name, but 20 years later she’s about to become the center of the story again in this tale of psychological suspense.

“A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of the All-Black High School Rowing Team,” by Arshay Cooper • Release date: June 30 • Cooper tells the moving true story of the first all-Black high school rowing team in the U.S., of which he was a part. This group of young Black men from Chicago’s West Side would face adversity to transform the sport – and their own lives.

“This Is Major,” by Shayla Lawson • Release date: June 30 • Lawson makes no apologies about being major. In a