Build your summer reading list with these upcoming releases from Vintage Books
The sun is finally beginning to make an appearance after dreary winter days, which makes us cast our thoughts ahead to warm summer afternoons spent lounging with a book, and what that book might be.
Vintage’s upcoming summer releases are packed with page-turning plots and sharp wit, made for park benches, beach towels and long journeys.
Get ahead of the rush by adding the books that peak your interest the most to your cart now so you’re ready the moment they land, whether you’re craving an escapist binge, a book-club conversation starter or a beautifully written story to savour in the shade.
Coming this May
Fiction
If you’re craving a read that hits you right in the heart, Homebound is your next obsession: a wildly inventive, time-spanning novel that moves from 1983 onwards, weaving together interlocking lives with the tender pulse of a found family at its core.
Think coming-of-age meets sea adventure meets space odyssey — immersive, hopeful and quietly devastating in the best way. Add it to your cart now for a book you’ll want to sink into (and then press into friends’ hands).
If you like your summer reading fast, twisty and impossible to put down, this is the book you'll want to pack for your next holiday.
The Arrival starts with an ordinary Friday night, and then hurls Leo and Viv into a high-concept thriller where Leo wakes up in unfamiliar hotel rooms across the world, while someone uses groundbreaking technology to hunt people down with perfect, untraceable murders.
It’s propulsive, cinematic and seriously addictive, ideal for nights when you promise 'just one more chapter' but don't mean it.
For readers who want something beautiful, bittersweet and quietly gripping in the heat of the day, Taipei People joins the classics this summer, and is a read you can dip in and out of.
These dark, wistful stories follow lives shaped by exile and memory in post-1949 Taipei — dancers, soldiers, friends at night by a lotus pond — each one intimate, elegant and emotionally piercing.
Buy it now for the kind of storytelling that lingers long after you’ve turned the final page.
Non-Fiction
If your summer reading mood is curious, comforting, and deliciously real , Eat Bitter belongs in your tote bag.
Lydia Pang uses the proverb 'eat bitter' (to endure hardship to taste sweetness) to trace her Hakka family history through food, fermentation and foraging, blending memoir with appetite and resilience.
It’s the kind of book you’ll read slowly, then keep thinking about over dinner. Perfect for fans of food writing with heart (and grit).
Coming this June
Fiction
If you like your summer reads funny, painful-in-a-good-way, and relatable, All In belongs in your bag.
One family holiday at a luxury all-inclusive should be an escape, but as the heat rises, so do the cracks in a marriage and the chaos around it.
Expect sharp observation, big laughs, and that delicious 'oh no… keep going' tension that makes you read faster.
For a lush, sultry novel you’ll devour in one sitting, Crescendo is pure summer drama: talent, envy, obsession, and the kind of gilded setting where everything looks perfect until it doesn’t.
Built around classical music and sibling rivalry, it promises revelations that keep tightening the screw right up to the last page. If you love elegant atmospheres with a dark pulse underneath, put this straight in your basket now.
Want a holiday page-turner with glamour, danger and a wicked sense of fun? The Pinnacle drops you into Mumbai’s most luxurious skyscraper, and a murder that pulls everyone into the fallout.
It’s fast, clever, and sharply entertaining, with characters you’ll love watching make terrible decisions. Perfect for readers who like their crime with heat haze, high stakes and bite.
If you’re after a bold, darkly funny novel that still lands emotionally, A Sense of Occasion is one to snap up.
A death in the family means a funeral, and a pressure-cooker gathering where desire, grief, old grudges and bad behaviour collide.
It’s sharp, stylish and unafraid of the messy stuff, perfect for readers who want something smart with teeth.
Non-Fiction
For a sunlit summer read that’s intimate, transporting and deeply moving, My Cantopop Nights is a memoir you’ll want to savour.
Through songs, memory and cultural history, Emma-Lee Moss traces identity, childhood and Hong Kong’s shifting story.
Ideal for anyone who loves music writing, place-writing, and books that feel like a mixtape you can’t stop replaying.
Paperback
Need a cosy, restorative pick for your summer reading stack? Soyangri Book Kitchen is your warm hug of a novel: a rural bookshop-café where good food, good books and a little human kindness help weary souls find their footing again.
Expect gentle escapism, community, and that satisfying 'I feel better just reading this' glow. Perfect for slow mornings and late evenings, add it to your bag for comfort-reading at its best.
If you want a summer read with big ideas and momentum, What We Can Know delivers: part biblio-mystery, part dark academia, with the past seeping insistently into the present.
It’s tense, thought-provoking and addictive, the kind of novel that makes you look up from your lounger and immediately want to talk about it.
Looking for something loud, funny, messy and brilliantly alive to read this summer? Men in Love throws you into the late-80s with the Trainspotting crew chasing hope, love and the next high, this time in the rave-fuelled push and pull of romance.
Full of swagger, heart, and Welsh’s signature bite, this read is propulsive, bittersweet, and impossible to put down.
For pure holiday escapism with heart, Island Calling is the summer read for you: funny, moving and full of sunlit charm, as a mother arrives determined to 'fix' her daughter’s life and sparks an identity reckoning instead.
It’s about mothers and daughters, holding on and letting go, and the surprising joy of choosing a different kind of home. A hopeful, breezy read that still hits deep.
Coming this July
Fiction
If you like your summer reading atmospheric and deliciously dark, The Night Stairs is one to add to your basket now.
Set in a convent boarding school where whispers, old legends and new scandals curdle into something sinister, it promises a relentlessly gripping psychological thriller with a setting you can practically feel under your fingertips.
Perfect for late-night 'just one more chapter' reading, even when it’s still light outside.
For a smart, funny, painfully relatable novel you’ll race through on a sunlounger, The Project is a must-add.
Daisy and Maya are riding the highs (and horrors) of modern dating, from chaotic nights out to questionable choices, until one regrettable hook-up sparks a bold 'project' to rethink what they really want.
Sharp, messy, and fizzing with energy: pre-order it now for peak summer escapism.
If you’re craving a hypnotic, haunting novel to sink into between swims, Long Wave belongs in your cart.
Daisy Johnson draws you towards a wild, storm-battered island and a lighthouse sheltering secrets. This is a story about losing yourself and finding family, with a voice that feels elemental and unforgettable. Long Wave is the kind of book you’ll read slowly, then think about for days afterwards.
Lonely Mouth if you want a summer read that’s razor-sharp, emotionally rich, and impossible to put down.
Set against the heat and pressure of fine dining, it’s a story of sisterhood, secrets, and family dysfunction, all the things we try to swallow, and the truths that refuse to stay buried.
Witty, savage, and deeply human, it’s perfect for readers who like their page-turners with real depth.
Paperback
For a clever, unsettling 'what would you do' read, add The Other You to your reading list now.
It asks the ultimate identity question: what happens when you have to share your home, and your life, with your clone?
Gripping, haunting and deeply thought-provoking, it’s ideal for readers who love high-concept fiction with an emotional punch and a lingering chill after the last page.
If you want a big, swoony, talk-about-it-for-days love story for your summer stack, you can’t beat The Time Traveler’s Wife .
Clare and Henry’s relationship is epic, tender, and complicated by one impossible twist: Henry is repeatedly pulled out of time, yanked into moments neither of them can control.
Romantic, heartbreaking, and utterly absorbing, this is the kind of book you pack 'just in case' and end up binge-reading.
