Fully Booked: Your 2026 Raleigh Summer Reading Guide, Plus Local Authors and Best Reading Spots
More than 40 summer book recommendations from Raleigh booksellers, interviews with three North Carolina authors, and the best local spots to read them.
More than 40 summer book recommendations from Raleigh booksellers, interviews with three North Carolina authors, and the best local spots to read them.
Susannah Baird, owner of Bright Side Books & Wine, Raleigh’s only romance bookstore, recommends love stories from wholesome romance to sweeping romantasy epics.
Enoch Marchant of Nice Price Books & Records on Hillsborough Street shares Southern fiction, biography and sports picks for your 2026 summer reading list.
Ginger Kauts of Quail Ridge Books, a Raleigh institution since 1984, shares fiction, fantasy and Southern author picks for your 2026 summer reading list.
Marcie Montague, owner of Juliet Books, downtown Cary’s first independent bookstore, shares the current and historical fiction she couldn’t put down.
Hannah Brunswick, co-owner of Blackbird Books & Coffee in Downtown Raleigh’s City Market, recommends poetry, thrillers and reads from Black, Indigenous and queer authors.
Victoria Scott-Miller, founder of Liberation Station in Southeast Raleigh, North Carolina’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore, recommends stories by and about Black women.
Colleen Gross and bookselling team at Dog-Eared Books in North Raleigh recommend beach reads, classics and North Carolina authors from their used-book collection.