NPR Staffers Pick 4 Standout Nonfiction Summer Reads

Q: Why does a 1965 academic book on grotesque bodies feature on NPR's 2026 summer reading list?

It likely appears because NPR’s summer list is mixing new releases with older nonfiction that feels newly relevant, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s 1965 *Rabelais and His World* fits that pattern. The book is the obvious match for the description: it is a classic academic study of the “grotesque body,” carnival culture and bodily functions, including defecation. That also explains why it could be summarized in the roundup as a “treatise on human defecation” — Bakhtin treats excretion and other bodily processes as central to his idea of “grotesque realism,” not as a side topic. Its timing also makes sense in 2026 because the book has been revived by a new English translation published recently, which has prompted fresh reviews and broader attention beyond specialist academia. New translations often put older works back into general reading circulation, especially when they make difficult texts more accessible. There is also a substantive reason for renewed interest. Bakhtin’s argument — that laughter, carnival and the unruly body can challenge official seriousness and social hierarchy — still resonates in contemporary cultural criticism. Readers and critics continue to find value in its ideas about collective life, taboo, humor and the body. So the short answer is that the book is on the radar again not because it is new, but because a newly available translation and its enduring themes have made an old scholarly classic feel timely for a general summer reading audience.

Q: With Murdaugh’s conviction overturned last month, does a new true crime book question the original verdict?

Yes. James Lasdun’s new true-crime book, *The Family Man: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh*, does cast doubt on the original murder verdict against Alex Murdaugh, even though it does not clearly exonerate him. The timing matters. Murdaugh’s 2023 murder conviction was overturned in May 2026 after the South Carolina Supreme Court found serious jury interference by Colleton County Clerk Rebecca Hill and said the original trial was unfair. A retrial is pending. Lasdun’s book, highlighted in NPR’s summer nonfiction recommendations, examines that same uncertainty. Reporting around the book says Lasdun questions whether the prosecution’s theory fully made sense, probes gaps in the evidence, and raises the possibility that if Murdaugh was involved, he may not have acted alone. Some reviewers described the book as leaving room for doubt about whether Murdaugh himself pulled the trigger. At the same time, the book is not a straightforward argument that Murdaugh is innocent. Other coverage indicates Lasdun still portrays him as deeply culpable and morally compromised, while challenging whether the original trial reliably proved the murders in the way prosecutors claimed. So the short answer is that the book questions the soundness of the original verdict and aspects of the prosecution’s case, especially in light of the overturned conviction, but it stops short of offering a definitive claim of innocence.

3 articles · Updated · NPR · Jun 23

NPR staffers published a summer nonfiction reading list spanning biography, memoir, nature writing and science-inflected essays.
Four highlighted picks include a Hannibal Lecter biography, a meditation on trees, a memoir by a child prodigy violinist and a treatise on human waste.
The roundup presents the selections as personal favorites from NPR colleagues, offering readers a broad mix of subjects for summer reading.