Happy Monday. Or maybe you’re just starting your weekend. Or perhaps you’re currently stuck in traffic, wondering what else to do with your hands other than grip the steering wheel.
Good news: it’s reading season.
This isn’t the usual news roundup. We’re talking about the universal summer pastime that doesn’t involve sunscreen or sweating through your shirt. Reading. Specifically, the new Scientific American summer reading challenge. And honestly? It’s the only way to ensure you’re actually consuming content that matters right now.
The premise is simple but deceptively effective. You head to sciam.com/readingchallenge, download the official bingo card, and start checking off squares. The goal? Complete a row, a column, or the whole board.
Sounds easy. Until you realize the squares include things like “read a nonfiction graphic novel,” “borrow a book from the library,” or “read a STEMinist romance.”
How do you fit The New York Times ’s harshest critics into a single square? You don’t. You curate. You hunt. You make choices that actually excite you.
Why the Summer Reading Challenge Matters
Summer is when we all swear we’ll read more. We buy the tote bags. We stare at the unread piles. Then August hits. We’re tired. The days are too short, or the nights are too long and hot.
Bri Kane, SciAm ’s senior editor, knows this trap.
“I look forward to it [summer] all year and will keep certain books set apart to properly savor on the beach,” Kane said. “My beach bag always has at least one book. Normally a new fiction book and a non-fiction option on a subject I really love.”
The challenge isn’t just a gimmick. It’s a structure for a season that often feels unstructured. By posting photos on social media and tagging #SciAmSummerReading, you join a collective effort to prioritize intellectual curiosity over mindless scrolling. Plus, there are prizes. But the real prize is finishing something hard. Something that changes how you see the world.
The “Buddy Reading” Method for Heavy Hits
One square on the card encourages collaboration. Or “buddy reading.”
If you’re wondering what that actually means: it’s a private book club of two. You and a friend. Reading the same book. Chatting about it. No pressure. No judgment. Just discussion.
Kane is currently buddy reading Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim with colleague Sarah Lewin Fraiser. Kim’s debut novel follows a woman returning to her South Korean hometown for a funeral. But there’s a twist. Another version of her is already there.
Why does this matter for your reading list? Because crossing borders in Kim’s world causes a person to split. One stays behind. The other moves on. It’s a concept rooted in legend, folklore, and history. It’s also weird, beautiful, and impossible to discuss alone without feeling like you’re losing your mind.
Fraiser notes that making your way through it together is the key. “It’s been really cool to make our way it together and discuss,” she said.
If you’re competitive like Kane, you’ll want to stack your bingo cards. That means finding books that hit multiple squares.
For example, This Vast Enterprise by Craig Fehrman and The Boundless Deep by Richard Holmes. Both dive deep into historical figures you half-remember from high school: Lewis, Clark, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Read them outside this summer? Hit the “nonfiction” square. Read one as a graphic novel? Double up.
How do you find nonfiction graphic novels? Ask us. Tag us on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. We’re listening. And we have opinions.
Ecohorror and the Goat Problem
Need a quick read that will mess with your head? Kane suggests Eradication by Jonathan Miles. It’s under 200 pages. A gut punch.
The plot involves a man taking a job on an abandoned island. The task? Kill goats.
They’re an invasive species. He’s there to stop them. But the job is harder than it sounds. The isolation. The violence. The weight of it. Kane read it on a plane and nearly cried more than once.
“This one is the best eco-horror option for those of you getting close to bingo.”
It’s not just a book. It’s a mirror.
The Science of Scents: How Flowers Changed Everything
Speaking of mirrors, what about the things that surround us every day? Roses.
David Haskell’s latest book, How Flowers Made Our World, tackles something we all love but rarely question: smell.
We are “mega voyeurs” of the natural world, Haskell argues. Think about roses. We don’t eat them. We’re not pollinators for them. Yet, we’ve built a hundred-million-dollar industry around their scent. People dedicate their lives to extracting rose aromas from plants that have zero evolutionary relevance to human survival.
Why?
Roses evolved their smell millions of years ago to speak to bumblebees. We just got hooked on the perfume.
Haskell also makes a bold, counterintuitive argument: grass domesticated fire.
To restore native grasslands, you need fire. Grasses coevolved with it. Grass slithers along the ground. When prairie fires hit, the competition—brambles, trees, saplings—burns. It becomes fertilizer. The grass roots, buried in the soil or slithering on top, survive. Next spring, they leap back out.
Haskell witnessed these prescribed burns. “It sounds like… a big rattling sound,” he said. “It’s really, really loud.”
Terrifying? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.
Rapid-Fire Recommendations for Your Bingo Card
You have the card. You have the motivation. Now you need the books.
Here is a rapid-fire list of suggestions to help you cross off those tricky squares:
- Science-inspired poetry: Read The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics And Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown. The New York Times called it “part history lesson, part séance, part ode to dread.” It’s set during the era when eugenics was mainstream science. It’s award-winning. It’s heavy. It’s exactly what you need if you want to challenge your definition of poetry.
- Sci-fi series starter: Blast through the Murderbot Diaries novellas by Martha Wells. Fast. Funny. Deep. It checks the “first book in a sci-fi series” square without requiring you to commit to a twelve-volume saga you won’t finish.
- Eco-horror: Sarah Gailey’s Make Me Better. Recent favorite. If you liked Eradication, you’ll like this.
- The “Written by a Scientist” square: This one is tricky. Rachel Feltman, the host of Science Quickly, actually wrote an audiobook. Been There, Done That: A Rousing History of Sex. It covers the history of sex. It’s also science-focused history. You can grab it via library apps like Hoopla to hit the “borrow from library” square. Or buy it from Libro.fm to support indie shops. Just try harder for the “underrepresented author” square if you can. Feltman admits, “You can probably do better for that square.”
Also, her initials are on the periodic table. Ruthenium. Check.
Where to Find What You Need
Don’t guess. Ask.
If you’re staring at a blank bingo card feeling paralyzed by choice, email [email protected] for personalized recommendations. Or just ask us on social media. We love suggesting books.
If you want to explore further, look into The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein for a book reviewed by SciAm with an accompanying author interview. Or dive into Sublimation if you want literary fiction that twists your brain.
The challenge runs through the summer. It’s not about finishing. It’s about starting.
“What are you reading this summer?”
We’re waiting for your answer. Tag us. Share your card. Let’s make this a summer of reading.
And don’t forget: Wednesday’s episode will have more recs from Bri and Feltman. Tune in.
Or don’t. Just go read something. Anywhere.
