For me, summer reading is all about getting to the books I most want to read. It’s not about escape, it’s about finding the time. That being said, there’s something about a day at the beach or out in the sunny backyard that can enhance a book’s transportive qualities. This is true of Irish writer Keith Ridgway’s Dooneen, a fantastical novel informed by the legacy of the Troubles, out this week and listed in our annual Summer Reads feature. Ridgway has a remarkable ability to create porous boundaries in his work, whether between past and present, fantasy and reality, or, in Dooneen specifically, between London and Dublin, as the protagonist magically walks through a turnstile from one city into the other. The story, about a gay writer swept up in a violent leftist uprising in his homeland, is funny, sexy, sad, and thought-provoking, sometimes all at once.

One of my favorite parts of Summer Reads is the staff picks. I love hearing about what my colleagues in the reviews department and beyond are reading. On shelves now, and on my TBR list, are Paige Lewis’s debut novel, Canon, which features editor Carolyn Juris calls “bonkers and beautiful”; The Danger to Be Sane by Rosa Montero, trans. by Lindsey Ford, described by reviews editor Marisa Charpentier as a “wholly original exploration of the creative impulse”; and The Yahoo Boys by Carlos Barragán, a “down-the-rabbit-hole deep dive into the world of Nigerian scammers,” according to reviews editor Dana Snitzky.

We also have lots of great interviews with authors on their new books, including climate fiction from Deb Olin Unferth and novels about a communities on edge from Courtney Maum and De’Shawn Charles Winslow.

Happy reading, and happy summer!

—David Varno