The Summer List
Eight books for money, place, work, and life.
Some years the summer list comes together by accident — whatever happens to land on the table by Memorial Day. This year I made one on purpose. Eight books across the four questions I keep returning to: money, place, work, and life. A mix of fiction and nonfiction. Some new, some I’ve been meaning to read for years, one I’ll come back to as often as I need it.
Read one. Skip one. Come back in September.
Lot — Bryan Washington
A debut collection of linked stories set across the neighborhoods of Houston. Washington writes the city block by block — the working kitchens, the apartments, the families holding together and coming apart. The title is literal: a lot is a parcel of land, and the book is about what happens on each one.
Poverty, by America — Matthew Desmond
The Princeton sociologist behind Evicted turns from individual stories to systems. His argument: American poverty persists not because of failures of the poor, but because of choices made by the non-poor. A short book, plainly written, that names the mechanisms most policy conversations talk around.
Empire of AI — Karen Hao
The most reported book on the AI industry to date. Hao spent years inside OpenAI and the broader sector, and the book is less about the technology than about the people building it, the labor that feeds it, and the political economy taking shape around it. Required reading for anyone trying to think clearly about where work is going.
The Fire Next Time — James Baldwin
Two essays, written to his nephew and to himself, on faith, country, race, and what it costs to love America. Published in 1963 and still the clearest American writing I know. I return to it most summers. This one I’ll return to again.
The Art of Gathering — Priya Parker
A book about why most of the time we spend with other people doesn’t mean anything, and what would change if we held our gatherings with intention. Dinners, funerals, weddings, Sunday school, board meetings. Parker is rigorous about purpose. I have been thinking about this book for years without having read it. This is the summer.
The Creative Act — Rick Rubin
Rubin’s book on making things. Short chapters, almost koan-like, on attention, practice, and what it means to do creative work as a way of being rather than a job. I keep it on the desk.
Irreplaceable — World Monuments Fund
A volume on endangered places — buildings, neighborhoods, sacred sites — and what is lost when we lose them. The photography is extraordinary. The argument is quieter: that places carry memory and meaning, and that the world is poorer when they go.
Light and Thread — Han Kang
Han Kang’s 2024 Nobel lecture, expanded into a small book. On writing, memory, what it means to bear witness to histories that governments would prefer to forget. The most contemplative book on the list, and the one I expect to reread soonest.
The full collection is on ShopMy →
— Eve Moss
The Summer List. May 2026.
If you’re new here: read.evemoss.com is where I share observations on money, place, work, and life.
Eve Moss is a writer and the founder of The Clarendon Group and Chavah Media.
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