It’s officially the first day of summer, and that means hitting the beach with a new book in hand! If your bookshelf is yet to be lined with novels you’re trying to read through the next three months, take a look at our top picks for this year’s summer reads:

1. We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman

Wendy Pearlman, a politics professor at Northwestern University, interviewed hundreds of displaced Syrians in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. While some responses take up pages, others only offer a few, short sentences. It’s a difficult to process, yet powerful read.

2. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang

Poet Jenny Zhang was the first writer published by Lena Dunham’s Lenny book imprint. Sour Heart tells the coming-of-age stories of young Chinese women living in New York City.

3. The Fulitarians by Anne Gisleson

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, literature serves as a healing device for a group of friends who form the Existential Crisis Reading List after having nowhere else to turn.

4. The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson

The Bookseller tells the story of Kitty, a bookshop owner, who longs to be a wife and mother. She begins to have a hard time differentiating the real world from her fantasy world. The film adaptation of The Bookseller will feature Julia Roberts as Kitty.

5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

If you have yet to read this classic novel, this is the summer to do it! Its star-studded film adaptation will feature Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, and Mindy Kaling.