Summer is officially in full swing, and that means it's time to chill out. Whether you're heading out on vacation or hoping to make the most of Summer Fridays, a good audiobook or podcast is the perfect companion. If you're craving an offbeat rom-com, murder mystery, or intimate conversation with a Hollywood legend, Spotify's editors are here to help you find your next summer beach read (or lakeside listen).
Audiobooks:
Going Bicoastal Written by Dahlia Adler
Narrated by Mara Wilson
In this queer YA rom-com, main character Natalya must choose between spending the summer in NYC with her dad (and the girl she's always had a crush on) or in LA with her estranged mom (and, it turns out, a guy she never saw coming). How's a girl supposed to choose? Thankfully she doesn't have to, because in Going Bicoastal, both summers play out in alternating timelines.
Just for the Summer Written by Abby Jimenez
Narrated by Christine Lakin, Zachary Webber, Abby Jimenez
Just for the Summer introduces readers to Justin and Emma, who share a common curse: Every person they each date goes on to find their soulmate the second they break up. So, the pair comes up with a plan: They'll fake-date each other and then break up. Their curses will cancel out, and they'll both go on to find the one. What could go wrong?
In Just for the Summer, set in a cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka, discover what happens when a relationship that was supposed to be temporary turns out to be more.
Beach Read Written by Emily Henry
Narrated by Julia Whelan
In Emily Henry's bestseller Beach Read, Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction, and January Andrews writes romance. The only thing they have in common is that for three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. The two struggling authors decide to strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.
The Midnight Feast Written by Lucy Foley
Narrated by Joe Eyre, Sarah Slimani, Roly Botha, Laurence Dobiesz, Tuppence Middleton
The Midnight Feast takes listeners into a world where darkness stirs under the burning midsummer sun. It's opening night at the Manor, the newest and hottest luxury resort, and no expense small or large has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles, cocktails are being poured with a heavy hand, and everyone is wearing linen. But old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor's immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And it's not too long before the local police are called. Turns out the past has crashed the party, with deadly results.
Swan Song Written by Elin Hilderbrand
Narrated by Erin Bennett
In Swan Song, a $22 million mansion is snapped up by the mysterious Richardson family and everyone in the community is swept into the ensuing high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, and flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts. And when their house goes up in flames and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.
Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of beach reads, and this last book in the Nantucket novels series-with its glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, and cast of beloved characters that includes the island itself-shows why.
For more summer reading inspo, head to our Beach Reads hub.
Podcasts:
CounterClock In order to tell the story of a crime, sometimes you have to turn back time. On her podcast CounterClock, investigative journalist Delia D'Ambra digs deep into a mind-bending mystery with the hopes of reigniting interest in a decades-old homicide case.
The Big Picture Whether you're looking for must-see movie reviews, Top 5 rankings, Oscars analysis, or anything else under the Hollywood sun, The Big Picture has you covered. In each episode, hosts Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins are joined by a rotating cast of Ringer colleagues including Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, and Bill Simmons.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus Each week on Wiser Than Me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus engages in a funny, touching, personal conversation with an iconic older woman brimming with the kind of unapologetic attitude and wisdom that only come with age. Julia and her 90-year-old mom, Judy, sit at the feet of some extraordinary teachers, including Patti Smith, Carol Burnett, and Gloria Steinem. Tune in to laugh, cry, and get wise.
Couples Therapy On Couples Therapy, comedians and real-life couple Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman gab with their favorite actors and comics about their romantic lives and answer your burning relationship questions with all the wisdom two unlicensed entertainers can possibly muster.
Murder in the Hollywood Hills Kristi Johnson was shopping at a mall in Los Angeles when a man invited her to a photo shoot for the next Bond film. That afternoon, the 21-year-old got into her white sports car and drove to meet him in the Hollywood Hills. She was never seen alive again. In Dateline's latest podcast, Murder in the Hollywood Hills, Keith Morrison takes listeners to the city of dreams for the story of a smooth-talking predator who lured young women into a nightmare with promises of fame and fortune. It's the story of how he evaded justice for years. But most of all, it's the story of a group of women who banded together to lock him up for good.
For more podcast inspo, head to our Essential Travel Listening hub.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Summer is officially in full swing, and that means it's time to chill out. Whether you're heading out on vacation or hoping to make the most of Summer Fridays, a good audiobook or podcast is the perfect companion. If you're craving an offbeat rom-com, murder mystery, or intimate conversation with a Hollywood legend, Spotify's editors are here to help you find your next summer beach read (or lakeside listen).
