The Book Review: Vacation reading

June 30, 2026

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The New York Times

	By Joumana Khatib

Dear readers,

As much as I appreciate a spirited vacation, the trips during which I mainly loll around like a sea lion are also pretty great. A string of agenda-free days last week left me plenty of time for reading whatever I felt like, including what I could scrounge from a stranger’s bookshelves. Here were the highlights:

Peggy Guggenheim’s memoir, “Confessions of an Art Addict,” a charming and opulent account that name-drops some of the 20th century’s most influential artists: Jean Cocteau, Constantin Brancusi, Leonora Carrington, Wassily Kandinsky.
A largely uncategorizable book by V.S. Naipaul, “A Way in the World,” composed of linked narratives that throw together Naipaul’s own biography and those of historical fixtures such as Christopher Columbus and Simón Bolívar.
“A Place of Greater Safety,” Hilary Mantel’s stunning historical novel centered on three leaders of the French Revolution. (It reminded me that I still want to read her novel “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” which draws on her experiences of living for a time in Saudi Arabia.)

Now that I’m back home, though, I’m looking forward to finishing a book that is deeply rooted in New York City. Hallie Elizabeth Newton’s novel “Agnes Lives!” follows an unhinged woman in 2014 cajoling someone, anyone, to kill her before the day’s up. It has the antic feel of “After Hours,” the Martin Scorsese caper, and its cultural references — SoulCycle, Goyard totes, the inescapable bone marrow on menus — are nearly as transporting as the very best historical fiction.

As always, I’d love to hear about what you’re reading. Please feel free to drop me a note by emailing books@nytimes.com, and I’ll see you on Friday.

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