How many of the most read books on Goodreads this month can you name? I’ll give you the genres, if you need a hint. In the top five, we have two thrillers, a historical fiction title, and two general fiction books. The #1 most read book this month is a controversial one: readers have strong opinions about this satirical tradwife thriller.
Before we check your answers, though, let’s talk about a few books out in July that deserve more attention—especially since the full list of the top 50 most read books on Goodreads in July appears, at a glance, to be entirely books by white authors. Yikes.
3 New Books Out in July You Should Know About
Unfortunately, the most read books on Goodreads tend not to be diverse by any definition of the word. So, here are a few new books that came out in July that deserve wider readership.
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead
Any release by a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is worth a shout-out. Plus, according to a few reviews I’ve read on Cool Machine, you don’t really need to have read the first two books in The Harlem Trilogy it belongs to. It looks at New York City in the ’80s and its explosion of real estate development, which gets juxtaposed with homelessness. We follow Ray Carney as he tries to play it straight (he’s just been named Furniture Dealer of the Month at his job), but gets dragged back to do just one more heist. To his credit, it’s because his wife was unfairly denied a loan by the bank. In any case, Ray and his associates find themselves navigating a new New York City, which is fighting to have a glistening new exterior, while its inner workings maintain the same level of inequity and violence. —Erica Ezeifedi
Dominion by Jean Kwok
The first in a new series, Dominion introduces us to Rubi, a young woman who has little to speak of in terms of magic in a world where magic is the biggest currency. When she catches the eye of a powerful leader in a different dominion after hurting one of his faction, he sends her into a brutal trial that leaves some partnered with tygers and some slaughtered. When she emerges selected, the world changes for her overnight, and becomes even darker than she knew. —Jessica Pryde
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Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef by Nephi Craig
When Nephi Craig was facing felony charges at 18, the judge gave him probation. The requirement? He could either work or go to school. Craig chose school and enrolled in a culinary arts program. There, he discovered a passion for cooking and realized that the European-inspired dishes required native ingredients from the Americas. From there, he found a lifelong love for studying Indigenous cuisine and ingredients. —Kendra Winchester
The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week
#5:
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
Theo of Golden has been dominating the bestseller lists for many, many weeks now, so it’s a surprise that it took this long to hit the Goodreads Most Read list. It’s a feel-good novel about Theo arriving at the town of Golden and learning the stories of its inhabitants. It was read by almost 66,000 users in July and has a 4.5 average rating.
#4:
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
This turned out to be the sleeper hit of 2025: it has kept growing in popularity, seemingly just from word-of-mouth recommendations. Katie Couric also named it the first pick for her new book club. It’s about a woman who has written letters daily her whole life. When someone from her past writes back, she has to reevaluate a painful period in her life and find a way to forgive. This was read by almost 76,000 users this month and has a 4.5 average rating.
#3:
The Divorce by Freida McFadden
In Freida McFadden’s newest thriller, Naomi is shocked when her perfect marriage abruptly ends and her husband moves in with a younger woman. She refuses to let it go, and she becomes obsessed with his new girlfriend. Along the way, she unearths secrets that put her life in danger. This was read by almost 90,000 Goodreads users in July and has a 3.9 average rating.
#2:
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
This is the newest book from the author of The Help. The Help was a huge bestseller, made into a blockbuster movie, but it received a lot of criticism for its use of stereotypes of Black people and white saviorism, as well as its historical inaccuracies. This criticism didn’t prevent Stockett from snagging a lucrative book deal for her new novel, however, and it looks like it hasn’t hurt its sales. The Calamity Club was read by 91,000 users this month and has a 4.6 average rating.
#1:
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
At the top of the list this week is Yesteryear, which came out in April. It’s one of several buzzy tradwife novels out this year. In this one, a tradwife influencer wakes up one day in the time period she’s been romanticizing, and real-life homesteading turns out to be much more difficult—and dangerous—than it looks on Instagram. Yesteryear was read by 200,000 users in July and has a 3.9 average rating.
The Bestselling Books of Summer 2026
For more buzzy books, check out our collection of the Bestselling Books of Summer 2026. These are all the books that have shown up on the biggest bestseller lists since June. Sign up for All Access to create your own collections!
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