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Indian Express
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's fiction redefines how we read women
Bold, unflinching, and deeply rooted in both the personal and the political. That's how I describe Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's work. She dismantles all-too-familiar stories, rebuilds them, and then asks us to sit with the discomfort. Whether through fiction, essays, or public talks, the Nigerian writer has steadily redefined how female voices, especially African ones, are represented in literature. Her work doesn't simplify, sanitise, or apologise; it demands to be felt. Her debut, Purple Hibiscus (2003), is written through the eyes of a young girl navigating the shadows of religion and domestic violence. Adichie introduced a kind of storytelling that was restrained but piercing; the language was lyrical, the emotions bruising. It was a debut that promised more and delivered. With Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), she turned her gaze to the Biafran War, offering a panoramic yet intimate portrait of love, survival, and betrayal. The novel, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction, centred not just the politics of the time, but the women who endured it. They were complex, fierce, and deeply human and never reduced to collateral or cliché. But it was Americanah (2013) that truly made Adichie a global literary name. Through the story of Ifemelu – a Nigerian woman who migrates to the US – she explored what it means to move across continents, identities, and cultures. With unflinching honesty, she unpacked race, hair, class, immigration, and belonging. The writing was observational, sometimes uncomfortable, often funny but always real. The New York Times named it one of the top ten books of the year. Outside of fiction, Adichie's voice has echoed just as loudly. Her TEDx talk 'We Should All Be Feminists' became a cultural moment, later adapted into a slim essay that found its way into classrooms, Instagram captions, and even Beyoncé's music. What made it resonate was its clarity. She wasn't lecturing, she was inviting. Her feminism wasn't rigid or academic. It made room for contradiction and evolution. There's a line in that essay early on, where she writes: 'I am trying to unlearn many lessons of gender I internalised while growing up, but I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations.' It's a quiet confession, but it hits hard. Adichie isn't interested in presenting a perfect feminism. She's more interested in a real one. Her follow-up, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, is written as advice to a friend raising a daughter. It's practical, warm, and deeply personal. Like much of her work, it's not trying to go viral; it's trying to connect. What sets Adichie apart is that she doesn't write women to prove a point or make them palatable. She writes them to be. There's no manufactured girlboss energy, no sloganeering and no faux-edginess. Her female characters are smart, sometimes confused, and often contradictory. They crave love and freedom, career and children, and they're never punished for wanting it all. Their dualities are part of what makes them real. She avoids the academic jargon that can often gatekeep feminist conversations. Instead, she writes with anecdotes, observations, and an unwavering sense of honesty. 'I write because I have to,' she once said. 'Because I believe that fiction can illuminate truth.' And she does exactly that, often with a kind of quiet conviction that lingers long after the last page. Kambili, Olanna, Ifemelu – her women aren't metaphors or mouthpieces. They're layered, flawed and alive who resist easy narratives. They are not written to inspire; they are written to exist, and that, in itself, is radical.
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Six great reads: Trump Island, Albania; DB Cooper revisited; and Alanis oughta know
Our books team packed for the beach to compile their essential list of summer reading: from novels by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Alan Hollinghurst to memoirs by Cher and Manhattan enfant terrible restaurateur Keith McNally, there's something for everyone. Plus they also rounded up the best new paperbacks and children's fiction. Put those screens away! Read more 'On Sazan, a small island off the coast of Albania, the landscape is Jurassic. Ferns, giant lavender, plumbago, rosemary, broom and laurels grow on the mountain at its centre. The view from the top, with its dramatic sunsets, is dizzyingly beautiful. Albanians call Sazan Ishulli i Trumpëve – Trump Island. Until now mostly untrammelled by development, it is on the verge of becoming a mecca for ultra-luxury tourism, another addition to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's real-estate portfolio … ' The pair have spent more than $1bn on an Albanian island that will be a luxury resort – once the unexploded ordnance has been removed. Marzio Mian travelled to Sazan to see how the developers' amibitions intersect with a bigger geopolitical picture. Read more It's one of the most famous missing persons cases in history: in 1971, a man held a plane to ransom for $200,000, then parachuted out in his suit and dress shoes, never to be seen again. What happened to him? Daniel Lavelle took a fresh look at a mystery that still has people scrabbling for answers – as well as a Manhattan dive bar dedicated to it. Read more She made her name with rage-fuelled anthems – and sold 75m records in the process. Speaking to Charlotte Edwardes ahead of her set at Glastonbury on Friday evening, the California-dwelling earth mother explained why she's ready to let rip again … Read more Can you imagine Liverpool without its Welsh Streets or London without Battersea Power Station? For 50 years, writes our architecture critic Oliver Wainwright, one small band of activists have been finding creative alternative uses for great buildings their owners couldn't see. Read more 'I started to notice my interruptions, the creative ways I managed to bring the conversation back to my favourite topic: me. I noticed how, in lieu of listening, my mind would embark on wild and weird adventures, fighting against the odds to relate everything back to my experience. My partner recalled the time that I said, to my embarrassment: 'That reminds me of me.' Ioan Marc Jones did his bit to end the plague of mansplaining, manologuing and bropriating … by shutting up himself Read more
Times
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
80 best books to take on holiday this summer — chosen by the experts
Whether you're jetting off to Bali, hopping on the Eurostar to the Continent or planning a staycation to make the most of our balmy British summer, you're going to want a holiday read. Luckily, the books team have put their heads together to come up with the best novels and non-fiction titles to accompany you on the sun lounger. There are gripping thrillers, steamy romances, big fat histories and engrossing memoirs, both brand new hardbacks and some more lounge-friendly paperbacks. What are you planning to read this summer? Let us know in the comments below. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's first novel in 12 years is a big, ambitious, scintillating ensemble piece about four African women living on both sides of the Atlantic who are connected by blood, friendship and employment. It's a comedy of manners about female experience, from bad boyfriends to genital mutilation. But for all its moments of darkness, the novel has an irresistible vitality that hooks you from the first page. It reads like a feminist War and Peace.4th Estate £20 pp416Buy a copy of Dream Count Kaliane Bradley's fish-out-of-water rom-com has a winning premise. A group of refugees from different eras are dragged into a laboratory in 21st-century London, where a new ministry is testing the limits of time travel. The narrator, a young British-Cambodian civil servant, is paired with Commander Gore, a cigar-smoking polar explorer from the Victorian era who must get to grips with everything from feminism to falafels. The book's combination of whimsy and seriousness works £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of The Ministry of Time In My Father's House, Joseph O'Connor brought to life the world of Nazi-occupied Rome, as an Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, smuggled fugitives out to safety. In this follow-up, set a few months later, the tension doesn't slack an inch. When a parachutist descends into the Colosseum, it sets off a chain reaction involving a widowed young aristocrat, a singer and the head of the Gestapo. It is haunting, sensuous and immaculately constructed — without sacrificing any Secker £20 pp384Buy a copy of The Ghosts of Rome Miranda July practically invented a new genre of perimenopause fiction with this deliriously playful novel about midlife transformation. An artist in her mid-forties leaves her husband and child to embark on a three-week road trip to New York, but only makes it to a motel outside Los Angeles, where she lusts after a young Hertz rental car employee, whose wife she employs to redecorate her room. A strangely touching tale about a woman prepared to pay a high price for her sexual £9.99 pp400Buy a copy of All Fours A powerful account of the aftermath of the 1958 Munich air disaster that killed half of a brilliant young Manchester United team. The author of The Damned United, who can squeeze more poetry and tension out of a team sheet than any other living writer, reveals the details of what happened in the fabled crash. Faithful to the language of the place and time, David Peace gives a sense of the distinctive communities out of which Manchester United was £9.99 pp480Buy a copy of Munichs Sally Rooney made her name as the master of complicated, yearning romantic entanglements between people with terrible communication skills. There's still plenty of that in her latest novel, Intermezzo, but the focus is on two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who have recently lost their father. Peter is a high-achieving lawyer while Ivan is a socially awkward chess whizz — they must navigate their tricky relationship with each other, while also handling some typically Rooneyan £9.99 pp448Buy a copy of Intermezzo • Sally Rooney in her own words: 'I'm fighting a cultural battle' In Killybegs in 1973, a man can do three things: be a fisherman, work in a fish factory or drive the fish to buyers. But when a baby boy is discovered in a barrel floating close to shore, the place acquires an air of magic. In Garrett Carr's wise and witty debut we follow that boy, Brendan, and his adoptive family. But the book is expansive, too, with a chorus for a narrator and delightfully well-rounded minor characters. It's an ode to Donegal and its no-nonsense £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of The Boy from the Sea With a greasy fried egg flopped on to the cover, Gunk is the It novel to be seen with on the beach this summer. But it's more than its aesthetic. Written by the 29-year-old Brit (and mother of three) Saba Sams, it's a tale of unconventional parenthood and the fuzzy lines between friend and lover. Set around a grotty Brighton nightclub (the eponymous 'Gunk'), it follows thirtysomething Jules as she navigates working with her loser ex-husband, Leon, and the new, enigmatic barmaid £16.99 pp240Buy a copy of Gunk David Nicholls's most satisfying love story yet is full of longing and doubt, of crap English B&Bs and soggy hikes. It centres on two lonely people thrown together on Alfred Wainwright's famous coast-to-coast walk. Michael, a geography teacher mourning the end of his marriage, and Marnie, a divorced copy editor, are given a second chance at love when a mutual friend invites them on a group holiday, only to abandon them. Nicholls hits the sweet spot between pathos and £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of You Are Here • How I wrote One Day — the bestseller that changed my life After the phenomenal success of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has been widely appreciated as an author of quiet, often older lives. In The Homemade God she changes tack, instead following the family holiday of Vic Kemp, a popular but ageing artist, and his children: Goose, Susan, Iris and Netta. As the sun beats down on their mansion on an Italian lake, the holiday threatens to spoil — particularly with the appearance of Vic's young new wife, £20 pp384Buy a copy of The Homemade God If you're looking for literary value, Dream State is basically three novels for the price of one. We start off in 2004 as Cece plans her wedding to Charlie, with the help of his best friend Garrett. But what begins as a high-stakes love triangle tale transforms into an engrossing family saga, spanning 50 years. The magnetic pull between the three characters is enough to sustain a third plotline: the devastating effect of climate change on Montana and the life they have built £18.99 pp448Buy a copy of Dream State Shy Creatures contains many of the same winning ingredients as Clare Chambers's whirlwind 2020 bestseller, Small Pleasures: a hardworking heroine in her thirties, an extramarital affair, a freakish real-life mystery and an undercurrent of sex and danger. Set in 1960s Croydon, it tells the story of an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital who is trying to help a young man whose spinster aunts have kept him locked away for several & Nicolson £9.99 pp400Buy a copy of Shy Creatures How do you write a ghost story for Gen Z? Make it about the horrors of London's housing market, of course. In Róisín Lanigan's smart, pacey debut, a young couple, Áine and Elliot, are shocked when they find a one-bed flat to rent at a reasonable price. But then mould begins to bloom across the walls, the heating is terrible and Áine becomes afraid of glaring neighbours whom Elliot can never seem to see. This is a sharp and witty read, best enjoyed far from damp and oversized Tree £16.99 pp288Buy a copy of I Want to Go Home but I'm Already There This is a fantastically original revenge drama about Cumbrian sheep farmers. Set during the foot-and-mouth disease crisis in 2001, this dark, visceral debut is a blood-soaked 'English western' narrated by Steve Elliman, a brooding truck driver who is drawn back to his father's farm. The novel begins bloodily: Steve and his neighbouring farmer, William Herne, are forced to slaughter and burn all livestock within three miles of the outbreak. A thrilling, cinematic book full of black Murray £10.99 pp272Buy a copy of The Borrowed Hills Looking for something a little bit … filthy? Try Paperboy, the Scottish crime writer Callum McSorley's follow-up to Squeaky Clean, where the (slightly incompetent) detective Ali McCoist has to solve the murder of a lawyer. Meanwhile, she's bumping up against some of Glasgow's worst gangsters — and trying to make it out alive. This energetic novel from a rising star of crime is full of black comedy, gore, slapstick and street Vertigo £16.99 pp384Buy a copy of Paperboy The video game designer Holly Gramazio has produced a satire on the Tinder generation's commitment issues that takes a clever concept and turns it into one of the most inventive debut novels in years. Thirtysomething Lauren returns home drunk from a hen do to discover that her flat has a magical attic that generates a revolving door of husbands. When she tires of one spouse, she can summon another, just as long as she can coax the rejected man into the £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of The Husbands • The Sunday Times Bestsellers List — the UK's definitive book chart There was a lot of scepticism in the air when Nick Harkaway, the son of John le Carré, announced that he was resurrecting George Smiley, but he has pulled it off with brio and an air of effortlessness. Karla's Choice is set in the ten-year gap between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A Russian agent arrives to kill a Hungarian publisher in Primrose Hill but realises he can't do it. All roads, Smiley discovers, lead to his KGB nemesis, £9.99 pp320Buy a copy of Karla's Choice Jessica Stanley's novel combines romance with brutal realism as it follows Coralie, an Aussie expat in London, as she falls in love with Adam. It's all going well until Adam gets his dream job as political sketch writer at The Times and their life is taken over by Brexit, squabbles and appearances on The Andrew Marr Show. Coralie, meanwhile, feels 'like a widow without the sympathy'. A wickedly funny tale about ambition, parenthood and long-term Heinemann £16.99 pp352Buy a copy of Consider Yourself Kissed • The best books of 2025 so far — our critics' picks Vincenzo Latronico's ingenious satire on Insta-friendly millennial living has become one of the buzziest books of 2025 — and it's only 120 pages. Anna and Tom are members of the 21st-century creative class living in a fashionable Berlin neighbourhood in the early 2010s. We learn about them through the images they present and the items they own — a Japanese teapot, a Berber rug and houseplants. So many houseplants. It's a horribly compelling tale of commodity £12.99 pp120Buy a copy of Perfection The first book in a crime series by the granddaughter of Kim Philby, who is celebrated for her espionage novels. Dirty Money features a winning duo in DS Madeleine Farrow, a successful operative in a government agency, and Ramona Chang, a former investigative journalist trying to make it as a private detective. In this story, which spans dingy east London and upmarket Marylebone, Farrow is investigating the wife of an oligarch from Kazakhstan and Chang is getting to the bottom of a dodgy dating site. Baskerville £16.99 pp320Buy a copy of Dirty Money A radical and funny reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain that was shortlisted for the Booker prize. It's told from the perspective of the seemingly placid slave, Jim, who we discover is only pretending to be superstitious and illiterate so his white masters aren't threatened by him. Percival Everett subverts and enlarges Twain's classic to produce a thrilling, canon-shattering £9.99 pp320Buy a copy of James If you don't mind crying on the beach then pack a copy of The Names. In this (deservedly) hyped debut Cora must take her baby boy to be registered. Her abusive husband wants him to be named Gordon, after himself. Their daughter, Maia, likes Bear as a name, while Cora is drawn to Julian. Florence Knapp's novel then splits into three, following the family through the twists of fate set in motion by each name. Prepare to be irritated by anyone who interrupts your £16.99 pp352Buy a copy of The Names It's 1891 in the mining town of Butte, Montana. A young Irish immigrant called Tom Rourke works as a photographer by day and prowls the town's bars and brothels by night. But when he has to photograph Polly Gillespie, the mail-order bride of the mine captain, it's love at first sight. The pair soon decide to get the hell out of Dodge. The Heart in Winter is a hot-blooded, chaotic wonder of a novel, written in Kevin Barry's typically inventive £9.99 pp224Buy a copy of The Heart in Winter 'Bridget Jones goes to Iraq' is probably the simplest way to explain this hilarious debut novel. Thirtysomething Nadia is heading up a UN programme to deradicalise Isis brides in Iraq. That sounds pretty harrowing, but this is an utterly riotous satire as our hapless protagonist runs into a sweary east London Isis bride (who jokes about the sexual proclivities of Osama bin Laden). When you're not giggling you'll find yourself thinking differently about this most divisive of & Nicolson £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of Fundamentally • 'I could have been an Isis bride': Nussaibah Younis on making fun of extremism Colm Tóibín's enthralling sequel to his acclaimed novel Brooklyn reunites us with Eilis 20 years later, in the 1970s. The girl from Co Wexford is now a middle-aged woman living in Long Island, New York, with her children and husband, whom she learns has made another woman pregnant. The revelation causes Eilis to head back to Ireland, where she goes in search of Jim, a shy publican whom she once loved. Tóibín dramatises secrecy and its consequences better than almost any other contemporary £9.99 pp368Buy a copy of Long Island • Colm Tóibín: a writer's last work has a special intensity This is a novel about Yugoslavia's civil war but seen through a specific lens. In 1989 a teenage girl, Silva, disappears from a village on the Dalmatian coast. But the fall of communism and the rise of unrest means that the investigation to find her slows to a halt. It is fascinating how Jurica Pavicic, who is from Split, tracks the impact of the missing girl and of the political situation on ordinary people in the village — her parents, a friend, the Lemon £9.99 pp402Buy a copy of Red Water If you're searching for proper escapism, why not head to the 1480s? John Collan, a peasant boy, has his life upended when an aristocrat sweeps him away to Oxford, claiming that John is really the Earl of Warwick, with a claim to the throne. Based on the real life of Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the throne, Jo Harkin's novel is touching and hilarious. She has immense sympathy for John as he tries to figure out who he really £18.99 pp464Buy a copy of The Pretender Robert Harris's 16th novel is a riveting tale of politics, war and erotic obsession centred on the prime minister HH Asquith and his vivacious aristocratic mistress Venetia Stanley. At the time of their all-consuming intimacy in 1914, he was 61 and she was 26 and, extraordinarily, Stanley became Asquith's 'most darling counsellor' as his Liberal government faced devastating battle losses and ammunition shortages. Penguin £9.99 pp544Buy a copy of Precipice Yael van der Wouden's steamy, twisty debut about forbidden love and the heavy burden of history has just won the Women's Prize for Fiction. It follows Isabel, a young woman living alone in her deceased mother's home in 1960s Holland. Her quiet, controlled life is interrupted by Eva, her brother's girlfriend, who comes to stay for a month and disrupts everything Isabel thinks about herself, her family and the country she lives in. There's an incredible twist about halfway £9.99 pp272Buy a copy of The Safekeep Management consulting and tidal energy start-ups … I know, I know, it doesn't scream 'beach read'. But Alexander Starritt's third novel will have you hooked. It's a tale of two promising young men, James Drayton and Roland McKenzie, who graduate from Oxford in the early 2000s and enjoy the promises and pitfalls of 21st-century capitalism, from the recession to Covid, from Brexit to Trump. More than that it's an ode to the enduring power of male £16.99 pp512Buy a copy of Drayton and Mackenzie Butter is a feminist crime novel with a delicious premise. Manako Kajii is sitting in prison, convicted of murdering men whom she had dated and swindled out of millions of yen before poisoning them with beef stew. To get close to Manako, the reporter Rika Machida agrees to start cooking all her favourite recipes. This is a full-fat, Michelin-starred treat that moves seamlessly between an angry young woman narrative and an engrossing detective drama and back again.4th Estate £9.99 pp464Buy a copy of Butter David Szalay, the author of Booker-shortlisted All That Man Is, has adopted a leaner, sparer style of writing for his latest beguiling novel, which tracks one man's life over 50 years. He follows an inscrutable Hungarian called Istvan from awkward adolescence, when he had an affair with an older neighbour, into middle-age as an intensely wealthy man in London. It's tense, unnerving and charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of our Cape £18.99 pp368Buy a copy of Flesh A quietly powerful story of a woman searching for the daughter she gave up for adoption. Dawn, a recently divorced Londoner who grew up in Trinidad, has spent years trying to track down the daughter she secretly gave birth to as a teenager. She became pregnant in 1980 and was smuggled to a convent in Venezuela, where she handed the baby over to nuns. A tender story about a woman trying to make sense of her life, it reads like a Claire Keegan story expanded by Elizabeth £16.99 pp304Buy a copy of Love Forms Moses McKenzkie's vivid, witty, exuberant novel goes back to 1980, to a defining moment in Bristol's history, when many of the residents of St Pauls were clashing with the police over the treatment of the Afro-Caribbean community. It's narrated in a propulsive patois by 14-year-old Jabari, whose father, a Rastafarian community leader, has been thrown in a police cell. It's an electric novel about black £10.99 pp256Buy a copy of Fast by the Horns • The Sunday Times Young Writer award: meet our shortlisted authors If you're heading to Capri, why not pack this superlative crime novel, which contrasts the area's rugged landscapes and high-end visitors? It centres on the wealthy Lingate family, who have been holidaying there for ever, even though Richard Lingate's wife died there 30 years ago, falling from a cliff. When his wife's necklace reappears (with a blackmail note demanding millions), long-buried secrets threaten to float to the £16.99 pp336Buy a copy of The Vipers Gail's daughter is about to get married despite significant qualms, and her annoying ex-husband has forgotten to book a hotel (and brought along a cat). All that would be manageable if she hadn't just quit her job (or been sacked, depending on who you ask). Anne Tyler's latest novel is a joy to read as she once again transforms the problems of ordinary people living ordinary lives into something funny, touching and real. It's also short — you could get through it on a long-haul & Windus £14.99 pp176Buy a copy of Three Days in June This darkly funny book about power, manipulation and complicity in the 1930s feels very relevant to the present-day political climate. It's about the small compromises that led the Austrian film director GW Pabst to accept fascism. Having fled the shadow of the German Reich to Hollywood, he was forced to return to Germany to create propaganda films for the Nazis. Daniel Kehlmann is strong on how quickly fear and corruption become £22 pp352Buy a copy of The Director This powerful portrayal of coercive control follows Ciara, who decides to leave her husband, Ryan, one afternoon after years of emotional and sexual abuse. At the time she flees her daughters are two and four and she has just discovered she's pregnant again. But she doesn't get very far after Ryan manages to block her children's passports. With skill and economy Roisín O'Donnell puts you inside the dilemmas of a woman who is constantly doubting herself. Scribner £16.99 pp400Buy a copy of Nesting The set-up of Louise Hegarty's debut seems simple: Abigail is hosting an annual murder mystery party held on New Year's Eve to celebrate the birthday of her brother, Benjamin. As morning dawns Benjamin, of course, is dead. Cue the arrival of Auguste Bell, a private detective plucked straight from the pages of an Agatha Christie novel. We flick between a meta murder-mystery comedy and the very real grief of Abigail. A great read for any murder mystery £16.99 pp288Buy a copy of Fair Play It's the summer of 1989 in rural 'horses-and-beeswax' New England and after convening at the house of their childless Aunt Frankie, nine children must find their cousin, three-year-old Abi, who has chased a wild creature. This short, ambitious, surreal debut novel is written in the first person plural, representing the gulf between a motley group of young cousins and their bickering parents, who harbour secrets and Heinemann £16.99 pp192Buy a copy of Idle Grounds Geoff Dyer's memoir of growing up in 1960s and 1970s Cheltenham as part of an ordinary working-class family is wonderfully evocative, ranging from his love of Eagle and Beezer comics to The Generation Game playing on television and the 'slop' of school dinners. Dyer writes especially movingly about his parents, and how his life became 'incommunicable' to them after he passed the 11-plus and later left home. 'If you've read Dyer before then you'll need no persuasion to read this book. If you haven't, it's the perfect place to start,' John Self said in his review. Canongate £20 pp288Buy a copy of Homework Max Hastings first wrote about the world-changing events of June 6, 1944, in his book Overlord, in 1984. This new one approaches the Allied invasion of Normandy from the bottom up; it's less interested in generals and geopolitics and instead focuses on individual soldiers, in particular the British men who landed on Sword Beach. He carefully sketches their characters, often by describing the things they carried. Lieutenant Alan Jefferson, for instance, took a tuning fork and a copy of Hamlet. Signaller Finlay Campbell carried a fountain pen — given to him for his 21st birthday. A thoroughly moving history. William Collins £25 pp400Buy a copy of Sword When 29-year-old Lamorna Ash heard that two of her university pals had given up their careers in stand-up comedy to become Anglican priests, it prompted her to undertake a nationwide search for other young people who were turning (or returning) to religion. Ash throws herself fully into this investigation of faith, saying yes to everything from a Bible course to a silent retreat. 'It is not only a fascinating sociological study and religious memoir, but a profound look at the power of ritual and communion with others,' Laura Hackett said in her review. Bloomsbury Circus £22 pp352Buy a copy of Don't Forget We're Here Forever Muriel Spark knew as a schoolgirl that she was 'destined' to write, that she had to take up her pen 'or else burst'. In a new biography of the great 20th-century author, known best for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Frances Wilson reveals that Spark had a life almost as strange and offbeat as her novels. At 19 she moved from Edinburgh and got married in southern Rhodesia, but within two years, she'd run off to London to be general secretary of the Poetry Society, abandoning her young son. There she had a breakdown — partly brought about by diet pills — and became convinced that TS Eliot was stalking her. A woman with a brilliant, uncanny Circus £25 pp432Buy a copy of Electric Spark 'So it's you. Here you are.' That's what crossed Salman Rushdie's mind as a man in black climbed on to the stage at a literary event in New York state in 2022 and stabbed him many times. His 'almost murder' lasted 27 seconds, but Rushdie had been anticipating it for decades, ever since the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for his death in 1989. This affecting memoir chronicles exactly what happened that day, as well as Rushdie's long, arduous recovery. Vintage £10.99 pp224Buy a copy of Knife • Salman Rushdie: I am 'over my attack' and have found closure This history investigates pop's greatest bromance: John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It begins in 1957, when 16-year-old Lennon invited McCartney, a year and a half his junior, to get involved with his skiffle group. The journey from there to global domination is familiar, but there's a freshness to this most recent telling, and Ian Leslie is particularly knowledgeable when it comes to the key songs and records. 'This is a wonderful contribution to the ever-growing Beatles library,' our reviewer £25 pp432Buy a copy of John and Paul This is both a memoir of a divorce and a sweeping cultural commentary. Starting with the enormous heart-shaped tin she used to bake her wedding cake — now a painful reminder of her separation from her husband after 23 years of marriage — Bee Wilson proves that it's not unusual for the things we keep in our kitchens to develop outsized sentimental value. Melon ballers, milk jugs and vegetable corers all have something to tell us. A fascinating and heartwarming read.4th Estate £18.99 pp320Buy a copy of The Heart-Shaped Tin Hares are too often dismissed as big ugly rabbits, but with her gentle yet remarkably detached memoir, telling how she found an abandoned leveret during lockdown and raised the little beast inside her home, Chloe Dalton sets the record straight in her unexpected bestseller. The supposedly untameable creature gets so comfortable in human company that Dalton even installs a hare-flap in her back door. It reads like a love letter to the natural world. Canongate £10.99 pp304Buy a copy of Raising Hare • Chloe Dalton: My father read Joseph Conrad to us at the kitchen table Few motherhood memoirs start with coke dealers and edibles, but Sarah Hoover's curious contribution to the canon is different. It opens with a candid admission that 'the last line of my baby shower invitation said no gifts unless it's drugs', and proceeds to repeatedly flip the bird at a society that expects women to be natural mothers and believe their children are the most precious things that exist. When Hoover's son arrived in October 2017, she admits with refreshing candour, she just thought he was ugly. A frank, often funny account of a reluctant & Schuster £20 pp352Buy a copy of The Motherload In this eccentric mash-up of biography, history and memoir, Philip Hoare reveals how the Romantic visionary William Blake made the world a more strange and beautiful place. If you're after a straight-up account of the poet-artist's life, this isn't for you. But if you want an account that pinballs from his influence on Oscar Wilde, to David Bowie's pop videos, then on to the author getting drunk with Peter Ackroyd, then onwards to an account of looking at the world through Blake's spectacles, then this is the book for you. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst in his review described it 'as one of the most original and uncategorisable works I've read for a long time … Get ready to see it on some important prize shortlists this year.'4th Estate £22 pp464Buy a copy of William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love Between 1964 and 1973, the psychiatrist William Sargant was in charge of the in-patient psychiatric unit in St Thomas's Hospital, London. The unit came to be known as 'The Sleep Room', because Sargant drugged his female patients so they would be unconscious for up to 20 hours a day, waking them up only to administer electroconvulsive therapy. In this shocking yet thorough investigation, Jon Stock speaks to some of the women who were admitted to the ward, uncovering the truth about this abuse of power. Bridge Street £25 pp432Buy a copy of The Sleep Room By all accounts, Eric Tucker's life didn't amount to much. Born in Warrington, Lancashire, he left school at 14 and spent his life drifting between jobs, including labouring, sign painting and, for a little while, grave digging. It was only after he died that his nephew Joe discovered a treasure trove of impressive paintings, which Tucker had completed across many years. In this loving memoir, Joe paints a portrait of his uncle, who would later be labelled as 'the secret Lowry'.Canongate £18.99 pp224Buy a copy of The Secret Painter Except for their literary prowess, what do Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann have in common? Each moved to rural England after personal tragedy. In this charming, vivid portrait of the three 20th-century figures, which won this year's Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Harriet Baker explains how the countryside was, more than just an escape, a means of carrying out 'new experiments in form, and feeling'. Penguin £10.99 pp384Buy a copy of Rural Hours Worldwide, nearly twice as many adolescents reported loneliness in 2018 compared with 2012. In England, NHS records show that more than 10,000 girls under 18 were treated in hospital for self-harm in 2010 and that by 2016 it was nearly 15,000. In The Anxious Generation, the American psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the almost unanswerable case that the root of such tragic trends is the spread (and constant use) of smartphones. Rather than hanging out with friends, the youth of today are isolated in their bedrooms, scrolling through social media content that frequently includes toxic information. This is a dispiriting but essential read about a large and looming social £10.99 pp464Buy a copy of The Anxious Generation • Jonathan Haidt: How we can save our children from smartphones In her jaw-dropping memoir, the self-confessed sociopath Patric Gagne explains what it's like to experience emotions differently to the average person, piecing together the events from her early life that first made her think that she might be immune to the pangs of guilt, remorse and affection that guide most ordinary people's actions. Cat-strangling, carjacking, lock picking and a party at Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion feature in this eye-opening cocktail of pop psychology and shocking personal £10.99 pp368Buy a copy of Sociopath The author best known for The Buddha of Suburbia had his life changed by an unlikely accident in 2022, when he passed out, slumped off his sofa and snapped his spinal cord. It left him paralysed, unable to walk or even to wash himself. In just a few weeks, however, his writing impulse returned. This memoir combines the notes he took in hospital, dictated to family members, and post-accident reflections on becoming a 'near vegetable'. It makes for uncomfortable reading, but is full of wisdom about freedom and self-renewal. Penguin, £10.99 pp336Buy a copy of Shattered • Hanif Kureishi: The accident left me 'like a turtle on its back' In 2011 Sarah Wynn-Williams joined Facebook as an optimistic young New Zealander. She left seven years later, disillusioned by what she sees as the tech company's moral corruption. In Careless People she turns whistleblower, alleging that Facebook has crept up to dictatorships and manipulated algorithms to prey on the insecurities of its users in its ruthless pursuit of money and power. 'It started as a hopeful comedy and ended up in darkness and regret,' she writes. The book, our reviewer said, is at once 'compelling and depressing'.Macmillan £22 pp400Buy a copy of Careless People The world's oceans contain 97 per cent of all water on the planet, and yet us landlubberly humans only glimpse the top of them. Except for the marine biologist Drew Harvell, that is, who has spent a lifetime donning scuba gear and risking the unseen dangers beneath the surface to get up close and personal with the creatures that live there. In this enchanting book she uses the complex histories of eight underwater creatures to showcase the mind-boggling variety of marine life, from nine-brained octopuses to phosphorescent sea gooseberries and gunge-busting sponges. Bodley Head £20 pp288Buy a copy of The Ocean's Menagerie New York jazz, London punk, hip-hop: Neneh Cherry has moved through enough music scenes to have material for a dozen books. But in this, her first memoir, the 61-year-old Swedish singer offers a brilliant insight into the joys — and the perils — of a creative life. The influences of her mother, the bohemian artist Moki, and her stepfather, the jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, are key — and explain why, as a child, she was given a Toblerone by Miles Davis — but she proves with gusto that she has her own tales to £10.99 pp336Buy a copy of A Thousand Threads This quirky biography tells the story of Louis Wain, the troubled artist who carved out a career as a cat cartoonist for the illustrated press, before ending up in a lunatic asylum where he drew bright, kaleidoscopic kittens decades before they became popular (Sixties pop artists loved them). Alongside this, Kathryn Hughes gives us a social history of the cat, how it went from unloved mouse catcher to the most pampered of pets. One thing we learnt: there is a long tradition of giving felines lamentable names — Thomas Hardy, who really ought to have known better, had one called Kiddlewinkpoops-Trot. 4th Estate £10.99 pp416Buy a copy of Catland Many books about the world wars are depressingly inelegant, but Jonathan Dimbleby's works are in a different league. This titanic account of the Eastern Front in 1944 covers an enormous canvas from the Baltic to the Black Sea, but it's the human details that linger in the mind, from the panic of German soldiers driven back through the snow to the doomed heroism of Warsaw's resistance fighters. Despite the harrowing subject matter, Dimbleby handles his material with such skill and wisdom that his book is a pleasure to £10.99 pp640Buy a copy of Endgame The paperback of this Baillie Gifford-shortlisted book comes out on July 3. It's timely. It's a non-fiction, tick-tocking thriller that imagines how a nuclear war might start and then unfold. Well, at least the end will be quick: it could take as little as 26 minutes and 40 seconds before the Earth becomes uninhabitable once the rockets start flying. Annie Jacobsen's account isn't based on fancy; she has interviewed dozens of military experts to make her various scenarios as plausible as possible. Mark Urban described it as an 'undeniably gripping narrative', which perhaps explains why Denis Villeneuve, the Dune director, is adapting it for the screen. Penguin £10.99 pp400Buy a copy of Nuclear War Why did the French Revolution happen? One could examine bread prices or the manoeuverings in conventions and assemblies — or maybe it would be more fruitful to get a sense of the national mood. The distinguished historian Robert Darnton does just that — he casts his eye over poems, gossip, scandal sheets, the bonnets that women wore and the songs that were sung to get a sense of the 'revolutionary temper'. He juxtaposes highfalutin philosophy with low rumour, showing how one blended into the other, to explain how revolution erupted in 1789. 'This book is, quite simply, a feast, but one that, thanks to superb storytelling, is easy to digest,' Gerard DeGroot £16.99 pp576Buy a copy of The Revolutionary Temper For sheer entertainment, this rollicking account of Britain before the Great War is hard to beat, brimming as it is with swindlers, murderers and charlatans, imperialist fantasies and saucy innuendos. The scope is vast, covering everything from the suffragettes to The Wind in the Willows, and the social historian Alwyn Turner proves a wonderfully enthusiastic narrator. Profile £11.99 pp400Buy a copy of Little Englanders The comedian Al Murray is a serious history buff and the battle of Arnhem has been an obsession since childhood, 'present in my imagination for as long as I can remember, a peculiar and powerful singularity'. He has read everything there is to read, walked the streets of the old town and stood on the bridge across the Rhine — that bridge too far. He does a terrific job of evoking the chaos of one day — Tuesday, September 19, 1944 — as the men of 1st Airborne tried to secure that bridge against fierce German opposition. It was bloody chaos. 'Everything was happening everywhere, all at once.'Penguin £10.99 pp432Buy a copy of Arnhem Britain had waited centuries for a landscape artist of genius and suddenly in the early 19th century two came along at once — John Constable and JMW Turner. Little wonder, that in art history they tend to be stereotyped as rivals, as polar opposites. Nicola Moorby in this dual biography counsels against seeing them as such. Both men had a bigger problem — that most English of themes, the countryside, was not seen as a fitting subject for artists. To Constable's despair, the aristocracy — the source of patronage — preferred 'the shaggy posteriors of a Satyr to the moral feeling of landscape'. Yale £25 pp352Buy a copy of Turner and Constable Homo sapiens is on the edge of extinction — we'll probably die off within the next ten millennia; a blink of an eye in the deep time of the Earth. Henry Gee, a palaeontologist, takes the long view. He looks at what might kill us off — famine, war, climate change, pandemics and so on — but the most fascinating parts of the book look at our distant past, when Homo sapiens was one of a number of different hominids before we drove our competitors into oblivion (bye bye Neanderthals, Denisovans and so on). In his description, 100,000 years ago we lived in a real Middle-earth alongside giants, troglodytes, hobbits and so on. Gee has a knack for making science come alive with a vivid image and witty £18.99 pp288Buy a copy of The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire James I had serious affairs with at least six men. 'He loves indiscreetly and obstinately,' a contemporary observer remarked, 'despite the disapprobation of his subjects.' These favourites he showered with favours, land, titles and slobbering kisses. In Queen James, the historian Gareth Russell foregrounds the intimate side of the king. It's seriously researched history, though, rather than salacious speculation. The man that emerges is clever, educated, filthy-tongued with a talent for languages, unpleasant, a lover of dirty jokes and luxury. It's good to know that he had a pet otter, which he would take for walks on a jewel-encrusted leash. William Collins £25 pp496Buy a copy of Queen James Two bright young journalists on this paper give us the inside story of how Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff and the most interesting character in this account, fought the battle to win Labour back from the Corbynistas. Starmer emerges as a ruthless, deeply pragmatic and strangely apolitical politician, a man 'forever uninterested in the politics of politics itself'. Bodley Head £25 pp480Buy a copy of Get In Thomas More, like Henry VIII's other chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, has always divided historians. Was he a heresy-hunting Catholic zealot, a torturer and murderer of Protestants? Or a martyr of saintly, spotless conscience, the cultivated author of Utopia? Joanne Paul in this biography errs towards the more sympathetic camp. Our reviewer Alice Hunt wrote: 'Paul is brilliant at bringing the swirl of Catholic England to life: its candlelit rituals, Latin prayers and saints' days, punctuated by tinkling royal processions.' Michael Joseph £30 pp644Buy a copy of Thomas More In December 2011 a young male wolf left his territory in Slovenia and began an arduous journey of several thousand miles across the Alps. He was wearing a GPS collar, so we know which rivers he swam, motorways he crossed and Alpine passes he loped along, on his travels across Austria and down into Italy. The nature writer Adam Weymouth follows in his pawprints, describing what he sees, as well as musing on our changing attitudes to the wolf. Hutchinson Heinemann £18.99 pp384Buy a copy of Lone Wolf Barbara Demick won the Baillie Gifford prize for her book Nothing to Envy, an extraordinary piece of reportage about ordinary lives in the totalitarian state of North Korea. Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a similarly impressive journalistic exercise, an investigation into how corrupt officials in China, especially the goons who enforced the brutal one-child policy, started stealing children and passing them off as orphans who could be adopted, for a fee (of course), by western couples. She focuses on the story of twins, separated as toddlers, and remarkably reunited 20 years later thanks to her sleuthing. Granta £20 pp336Buy a copy of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove The subtitle gives a clue to the large cast of characters involved in this lively, vivid history of Budapest during the Second World War. We meet glamorous actresses working for the anti-Nazi resistance, a Jewish teenage draughtsman who became a brilliant forger of passports, a Polish aristocrat who turned out, perhaps to her surprise, to be rather skilled at blowing things up … But, of course, this is a horrible story. The cosmopolitan city of Budapest descended into barbarism — and as the Red Army neared its walls, the fascist Arrow Cross government started to deport and murder the surviving Jews. Head of Zeus £27.99 pp512Buy a copy of The Last Days of Budapest If you're bored of history books that entomb you in dates, extraneous details and footnotes, then The Golden Throne might be the answer. This account of the middle years of the reign of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent reads like a novel (the early years are recounted in The Lion House). The world of the 16th century — of eunuchs, diplomats, pirates and princes, of sea battles, stranglings and perfumed goings-on in harems — pops to life. Christopher de Bellaigue's writing is confident and playful. If only more historians wrote with such verve. Bodley Head £22 pp272Buy a copy of The Golden Throne Suzanne O'Sullivan, an NHS neurologist, is a humane and thoughtful observer of the oddities of the human mind, especially psychosomatic conditions. Her 2015 book It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness and the 2021 follow-up The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness are full of intriguing case studies and wise observations. The Age of Diagnosis ranges widely, taking in the drawbacks of mass screening for illnesses as well as the perils of overextending mental health categories so that what was once simply unusual behaviour earns itself a medical label of ADHD or autism. We make people sicker by the simple act of diagnosing them with a medical problem, she says. A fascinating & Stoughton £22 pp320Buy a copy of The Age of Diagnosis • ADHD, autism, cancer: this doctor says overdiagnosis is the issue The eerie tale of how in the early 20th century, Dr Hawley Crippen fell in love with his typist, murdered his second wife and then fled across the Atlantic, triggering one of the most celebrated pursuits in modern history, is well known. But the historian Hallie Rubenhold thinks we have been telling it all wrong. Too often the wicked doctor is put at the heart of the story, while the women whose lives he touched are ignored or caricatured. She puts the victims centre stage. 'Even though we know where the story is leading,' Dominic Sandbrook wrote in his review, 'Rubenhold makes it tremendously exciting.'Doubleday £25 pp512Buy a copy of Story of a Murder The rising young historian Tim Bouverie made a name for himself with Appeasing Hitler (2019), a compelling study of the disastrous British diplomacy of the 1930s. This ambitious follow-up dissects the 'improbable and incongruous Alliance' that defeated Hitler. Well-trodden ground, you might think, but it goes far beyond the British-Soviet-American troika, so we learn about Britain's relationship with France (before and after its fall in 1940), nationalist China, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. It's full of fascinating nuggets, character sketches and peppery judgments. Saul David called the book 'a fine reassessment of Allied politics and diplomacy during the Second World War: impeccably researched, elegantly written and compellingly argued.'Bodley Head £25 pp688Buy a copy of Allies at War In 1919 four teams of aviators battled to become the first to cross the Atlantic — and win a £10,000 prize (about £660,000 in today's money) posted by the Daily Mail. These men were driven by the purest form of heroic adventure — what one journalist called 'sublime insanity'. The Big Hop is a glorious romp through an overlooked part of aviation history, stuffed full of intriguing characters and white-knuckle & Windus £22 pp320Buy a copy of The Big Hop Edmund White died this year aged 85 — but the grand old man of gay literature was writing up until the end. This 'sex memoir' has all the unfiltered candour you'd expect of an octogenarian who was too old to care what anyone else thought. We learn everything — penis size, favoured positions — as well as meeting dozens of the thousands of men he fell in love with, ever so briefly and untenderly. It's the rather touching last hurrah of a writer who never believed in something being 'too much information'.Bloomsbury £20 pp256Buy a copy of The Loves of My Life Vasili Mitrokhin didn't fit the Hollywood image of a secret agent. He was a scruffy oddball who had been demoted from fieldwork to the dreary backwater of the KGB's archives. But the information he gleaned from burrowing in the shelves and boxes — and then passed on to the West — was described as 'the biggest counterintelligence bonanza of the postwar period'. Gordon Corera, formerly the BBC's security correspondent and now a co-presenter of the intelligence podcast The Rest Is Classified, tells the story of this irascible, unlikely spy and his trove of Collins £25 pp336Buy a copy of The Spy in the Archive
The Guardian
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Summer reading: the 50 hottest books to read now
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieA rich exploration of female experience, Adichie's first novel in 10 years charts the lives and loves of four women in Nigeria and the US, from a 'dream count' of ex-boyfriends to a section inspired by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's alleged rape of a Guinean hotel worker in 2011. Magisterial, wide-ranging and delicately done. Flesh by David SzalayThis spare account of the rise and fall of a contemporary everyman, from small-town Hungary to London's elite, and back again, gains an extraordinary power through what is left unsaid: buried emotion, the silent depths of trauma, the ultimate unknowability of the self and others. A propulsive investigation into sex, power, class and masculinity. Slags by Emma Jane UnsworthNot so much a beach read as a caravan comedy. Fortysomething Sarah takes her younger sister on an ill-advised holiday through the Highlands of Scotland: drink is taken, food is cobbled together, there is bad weather and worse parking as unsuitable men and unresolved teenage trauma intrude. This exuberantly funny road trip is also a love letter to the fractious bond between siblings. Dream State by Eric PuchnerIn this big, bittersweet American family saga, golden couple Cece and Charlie are preparing to marry – and then she meets his difficult, unhappy best friend … Mistakes are made and decades sweep by in an immersive panorama of friendship and rivalry, marriages and children, tragedy and love. Meanwhile, the climate crisis bites, and the sands of time are only running in one direction. A book to lose yourself in, but one that doesn't duck the big issues. The Names by Florence KnappThis year's buzziest debut lives up to the hype. It's a sliding doors story where the narrative splits into three paths after a mother registers her baby. We follow the lifelong implications of choosing three different names: Gordon, as her abusive husband (also Gordon) demands; the solid and confident Julian; or the wild yet cuddly Bear. The high concept is carried off with flair, in a tender, clear-eyed portrayal of the horrors of domestic violence and joys of family life. The Land in Winter by Andrew MillerUnseasonal reading, but Miller's tale of two young couples in the West Country who get snowed in during the big freeze of 1962-63 has an uncanny beauty and depth. The legacy of the second world war reaches into a present on the brink of seismic change, in a novel that travels into the darkest places of history and the strangest corners of the human mind. The Pretender by Jo HarkinBilled as 'Demon Copperhead meets Wolf Hall', this historical rollercoaster has a charm all of its own. In the chaotic wake of the Wars of the Roses, a farm boy is plucked from obscurity and groomed as the rightful heir to the throne. From Burgundy to Ireland to the paranoid court of Henry VII, Lambert Simnel's coming-of-age journey is wild indeed – but who is he really? A brainy, heartfelt delight. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean VuongThe follow-up to On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a lushly written panorama of unexpected connections and second chances, set in the struggling blue-collar town of East Gladness, Connecticut. Young Hai forges an unlikely friendship with elderly widow Grazina in a tale of precarity, endurance and small joys. Gunk by Saba SamsSams made a name with her spiky stories, Send Nudes; her first novel is an equally fresh and funny portrait of unexpected motherhood and alternative families, as thirtysomething Jules, the manager of a grimy Brighton club, finds herself in a not-quite-love triangle with her useless ex-husband and an unconventional young woman called Nim. Raw, tender and unusual. The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan CoeCoe has enormous fun with a cosy crime spoof set against the strange days of Liz Truss's time as PM. The mysteries – about a sinister rightwing thinktank, and a cult novelist – extend back to the 80s, in a book fuelled with bittersweet nostalgia as well as righteous contemporary anger. The Benefactors by Wendy ErskineThis polyphonic portrait of class, power and social exclusion in Northern Ireland – the debut novel from an award-winning short story writer – is centred on the assault of a teenage girl, and the reactions of the boys' parents. Erskine is a nimble, prodigiously talented author: funny and brutal by turns, with an extraordinary immediacy. Our Evenings by Alan HollinghurstSweeping yet intimate, Hollinghurst's seventh novel becomes a bravura history of English gay life from the 60s through to the pandemic, as it follows Dave Win from his schooldays, an outsider in a world of privilege, through an acting career and into late-life contentment. The Latehomecomer: Essential Stories by Mavis GallantA vital introduction to one of the greatest short-story writers, selected by Tessa Hadley. Canadian Gallant was a sharp-eyed observer of the migrations of the 20th century, imbuing her tales of ordinary people caught up in the tides of history with merciless comedy and flinty compassion. The Tiger's Share by Keshava GuhaA novel of ideas crossed with a juicy family saga, this state-of-the-nation snapshot of contemporary India wittily anatomises the battle for resources – environmental, financial, social – in a clash between ambitious daughters and complacent sons. Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie HughesAn expat couple, digital nomads in a rapidly gentrifying Berlin, meticulously curate their lives – from recipes to LPs, houseplants to sex parties. But meaning and happiness remain stubbornly out of reach … A cool indictment of modern emptiness and global anomie; shortlisted for the International Booker. The Death of Us by Abigail DeanA horrific home invasion breaks open the cracks in a couple's relationship. Decades later, their attacker is caught and they must finally face up to the repercussions of that night. A crisply written, slow-burn psychological thriller from a crime writer at the peak of her powers. Audition by Katie KitamuraThis daring, riddling novel hinges on the relationship between a successful New York actor and a man young enough to be her son. It's a literary hall of mirrors that explores the deepest questions about performance, identity and how we relate to each other. Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica StanleyAustralian Coralie falls for single dad Adam and they make a perfectly imperfect life together. So why, a decade on, does she feel so lost? This relatable romcom explores what happens after the happy ever after (who gets the home office, and who does the childcare). Clever, funny, politically aware and full of literary in-jokes. We Do Not Part by Han Kang, translated by e yaewon and Paige MorrisAn investigation into historical atrocity from the Korean Nobel laureate and author of The Vegetarian. Kyungha travels to Jeju Island, answering a cry for help from an old friend; there, in an uncanny snow-filled landscape, a buried story comes into the light. A strange, beautiful and vital work. Fundamentally by Nussaibah YounisShortlisted for the Women's prize, this daring blackly comic debut follows a British academic who goes to work for the UN in Iraq, rehabilitating Islamic State brides – including bolshie east Londoner Sara, who joined IS at 15, and reminds her irresistibly of her younger self. A smart, informed critique of the hypocrisies of international aid that's also jampacked with action and jokes. Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt The poet and memoirist's debut novel is an achingly beautiful story of first love in the English countryside, recalled 20 years on. Sensitive teenager James falls for enigmatic Luke, but are his feelings requited? Lyrical, atmospheric and transporting. Men in Love by Irvine WelshWelsh pays another visit to Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie, now scattered across Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam and Paris in the wake of the double-crossing drug deal that closed Trainspotting. These are the post-heroin years, chasing romance, dance culture and material success, as the 90s dawn and a new era begins. Out on 24 July. Spent by Alison BechdelA new graphic novel from the author of Fun Home is always a joy. Spent finds Alison in midlife, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont with her wife, Holly, and considering late capitalism, evolving sexual etiquette, ethical living and her own privilege in a country on the verge of civil war. Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní ChuinnThere's excitement building around this young writer from the north of Ireland, whose debut collection comes out in mid-July. Ranging from the generational trauma of the Troubles to medical students' first dissection, the stories are scrupulous, surprising and entirely gripping. The arrival of a stunning new voice. Endling by Maria RevaA maverick scientist obsessed with rare snails, a marriage industry offering submissive brides for wealthy westerners, a country on the brink of war. Following an excellent short-story collection set in 1980s Soviet Ukraine, the Ukrainian-born Canadian writer comes right up to the minute with a fierce and funny road-trip novel which is – literally – interrupted by Russia's invasion. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-WilliamsAs a senior adviser at Facebook, Wynn-Williams saw how its leaders operated at close quarters, wielding influence at home and sowing chaos abroad. Meta has called her account a 'false and defamatory book [that] should never have been published' – but since it was, readers are in a position to judge for themselves. When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon CarterAs editor of Vanity Fair while it still had money coming out of its ears, Carter entertained the stars, nurtured great writers and even (occasionally) broke stories. Come for the gossip about Anna Wintour's table manners and Donald Trump's fingers, stay for the finely observed portrait of New York media before the fall. The Memoir, Part One by CherAs she charts her journey from poverty to the brink of superstardom, Cher remains 'as keenly sensitive to her own absurdity as she is to that of others', according to our reviewer. This first instalment of the singer's life story covers her childhood and early success with Sonny Bono. John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian LeslieThere have been many histories of the Beatles, emphasising splits in the band, coming down on the side of either McCartney's or Lennon's genius. Leslie takes a different approach, focusing on the intense bond between the two lead songwriters. Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen by Hallie RubenholdShe was described in contemporary accounts as 'a flashy, faithless shrew'. In reality, she was the blameless victim of a brutal psychopath. Here, Rubenhold, who brought Jack the Ripper's victims to life in The Five, gives Cora Crippen her due. Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria AmelinaUkrainian novelist Amelina was recording her own wartime experiences – and those of the women around her – when she was killed at the age of 37 by a Russian missile. Our critic described the resulting book as 'an important piece of testimony and a precious, powerful work of literature: a steady beam of light born amid darkness and violence'. Minority Rule by Ash SarkarCampaigner and commentator Sarkar surveys the political landscape and finds the left ailing and unsuccessful amid resurgent populism. Where did it all go wrong? Her analysis calls for progressives to ditch identity politics and unite to topple the right. The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir by Edmund WhiteA riotous and raw account of gay sex spanning seven decades, this 'erotic almanac' turned out to be White's final work: he died, aged 85, at the beginning of June. A fitting signoff by onewriter called the 'patron saint of queer literature'. The Golden Throne: The Curse of a King by Christopher de BellaigueImmersing the reader in tales of power and intrigue at the Ottoman court of Suleyman the Magnificent, this propulsive history in novelistic mode has been dubbed by one critic 'Wolf Hall with sultans and eunuchs'. The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far by Suzanne O'SullivanWhat do you get with a medical diagnosis? Relief? Effective treatment? Or a self-fulfilling prophecy? Neurologist O'Sullivan believes that doctors are casting the diagnostic net too wide, but she approaches her subject with compassion, wisdom and expertise, rather than culture-war carping. The CIA Book Club by Charlie EnglishCan literature bring down totalitarian governments? The CIA thought so, covertly funnelling Orwell, Solzhenitsyn and the occasional Agatha Christie to hungry readers in the Eastern Bloc. English's spy-inflected history makes the case for the political power of literature. Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura SpinneyBillions of people now speak languages descended from Proto-Indo-European, once the mother tongue of a small group of nomadic herders on the Eurasian steppe. How did their influence spread so widely? Spinney traces the indelible imprint of their culture and lexicon. Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference by Rutger BregmanSo you've been blessed with the skills, self-discipline and means to succeed: what should you do? Don't work for a blue-chip law firm or financial services company, argues Bregman in this blend of manifesto and career manual, which encourages bright young things to use their talent in the service of climate action and human rights. A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda ArdernThe former prime minister of New Zealand navigated sexism, violence and a global pandemic during her time in office, becoming a household name in the process. She shares hard-won lessons on life and politics. Is a River Alive? by Robert MacfarlaneStanding in the middle of a torrent in Ecuador, Macfarlane begins to wonder why we restrict ideas of 'life', and the rights that come with it, to human beings. Nature, he argues, should be afforded the same respect. Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance by Joe DunthorneNovelist Dunthorne had always believed his family story was one of heroic escape from Nazi persecution. The truth, as he discovers after finally reading his great-grandfather's impenetrable memoir, is far more complicated – and much darker. The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West by Shaun WalkerGovernments usually know about the foreign spies in our midst – attached to embassies, with diplomatic cover stories, their existence is a mutually agreed on open secret. But there's another category – those who go deep underground, mingling with civilians and fooling everyone around them. Guardian reporter Walker tells their stories. The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects by Bee WilsonWhen her husband left her, Wilson found herself surrounded by objects that reminded her of their life together, including the heart-shaped tin she used to bake their wedding cake. This is the jumping off point for a moving meditation on the role household items – 'kitchenalia' – play in our lives. No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain by Rebecca SolnitIn an inspiring series of essays, activist and author Solnit addresses the question of how to avoid despair, and keep engaged, in a world that seems to be stumbling from crisis to catastrophe. Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark by Frances WilsonA new biography of the singular writer examines her life up until the publication of her first novel at the age of 39, shedding light on her abusive marriage, the 'abandonment' of her son, and her religious conversion. Homework by Geoff DyerDyer, author of The Last Days of Roger Federer, returns with a wry but loving homage to small-town 60s and 70s England, conker fights and all. Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline FraserWhy has the Pacific Northwest been home to so many murderers, from Ted Bundy to the Green River Killer? The author of Prairie Fires weaves a different kind of true-crime narrative, in which the industrial history of the region plays a pivotal role. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNallyThe founder of Balthazar and a slew of other taste-making restaurants blundered into his job as a New York busboy after just two weeks of trying to make it as a film-maker, and the rest is culinary history. From serving Patti Smith and Ingrid Bergman to hanging out with Lorne Michaels and Oliver Sacks, all New York life is here. We Were There by Lanre BakareIn this acclaimed cultural history of 1970s and 80s Britain, Guardian journalist Bakare uncovers lesser-known stories of Black life and activism outside London. Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness by David Attenborough and Colin ButfieldBritain's greatest naturalist teams up with producer and environmentalist Butfield for a lavishly photographed and scientifically rigorous look at how life in the seas is being affected by climate change. Matriarch by Tina KnowlesBeyoncé's mother has been intimately involved with her daughter's work, designing outfits for Destiny's Child and helping craft her solo image. But she has a story of her own to tell, of a family shaped by the legacy of slavery and a hardscrabble childhood in 1950s Texas. Intermezzo by Sally RooneyRooney's fourth novel takes us inside the minds of two very different brothers, a worldly-wise lawyer and a shy young chess prodigy, as they navigate bereavement and romance. A tender, thoughtful page-turner about the meaning of life. James by Percival EverettEverett retells the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved character Jim, exploring the silences and erasures of Mark Twain's problematic classic in a rollicking adventure that combines philosophical profundity with bitter black comedy. All Fours by Miranda JulyThis playful, no-holds-barred account of one woman wrestling with – and newly energised by – the life-upending changes of menopause has become a phenomenon. It's provocative, mind-expanding and always surprising. You Are Here by David NichollsTwo mismatched, disappointed midlifers; a hike across the Lake District; a tentative romance that is warmly hilarious but never sentimental. Pure pleasure in a paperback. The Safekeep by Yael van der WoudenIn the wake of the second world war, in the quiet Dutch countryside, repressed Isabel finds her beliefs and desires turned inside out. Shortlisted for the Booker and winner of the Women's prize, this striking debut is a measured excavation of 20th-century horrors as well as a subtle family saga and intense queer love story. The Secret Public by Jon Savage: How LGBTQ Resistance Shaped Popular Culture (1955–1979)Savage, a veteran chronicler of music culture, charts the slow but steady emergence of the queer sensibility in pop from Little Richard to David Bowie and Donna Summer, showing how it helped pave the way for social and political liberation. Broken Threads: A Family From Empire to Independence by Mishal HusainThe personal is geopolitical for the former Today programme presenter, who uses her own remarkable family as a lens through which to view the partition of India. Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie ElmhirstWhat happens to a marriage when the couple are forced to spend 118 days adrift in the ocean after a terrifying incident involving a whale? Elmhirst's Nero-prize winning true story asks deep questions about our capacity for hope and resilience. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan HaidtIn his urgent warning about the damaging effects of smartphones on the lives of children and teenagers psychologist Haidt analyses the evidence and offers advice for concerned parents. Question 7 by Richard FlanaganFlanagan's uncategorisable fusion of memoir and history tackles physics, war, childhood and environmental change – with a riveting near-death narrative thrown into the mix. A deserving winner of last year's Baillie Gifford prize. Recommended by Imogen Russell Williams Mouse by the Sea by Alice Melvin This gorgeous 4+ picture book is full of seaside delights – ice-creams, dunes and rock pool treasure hunts – with flaps to lift and a nature guide at the back. Pandora in Puzzlevale: The Secret Town by Paul Duffield, Poqu and Siobhan McKenna Puzzle lovers of 7 or 8+ will devour this brainteasing, interactive story, helping Pandora solve riddles to track down her missing parents and uncover the mysteries of Puzzlevale itself. Naeli and the Secret Song by Jasbinder Bilan After losing her mother, Naeli leaves India to find her father with only a ticket to England, his name and her beloved violin. Her quest takes her from Hyderabad to a remote Northumberland farm, plunging her deep into a devious family plot in this absorbing, atmospheric 8+ historical adventure. Paddock Grove: A Pony to Own by JP Rose Winning a scholarship to Paddock Grove equestrian school is George's dream come true. But when her parents surprise her with scruffy, naughty pony Bear, it turns into a nightmare, especially when the other students make fun of them. Will George and Bear ever learn to trust each other and work together? A joyously satisfying pony book, first in a new 8+ series (out 3 July). Shadow Thieves by Peter Burns In an alternative London, Tom picks pockets to stay out of the workhouse – until his friends are caught, and a stranger offers him the chance to free them by joining an elite school for thieves. Can Tom adapt to his new milieu, save his friends and ward off the dangers threatening the school? This high-octane, fast-paced debut will be impossible to put down, especially for 9+ Skandar fans. Grimstink by Daniel Peak When alien warrior Grimstink arrives to annihilate life on Earth, 13-year-old Layla Tenby gets displaced to the planet he's just left. She's trying to dodge deathbots while Grimstink battles traffic wardens, the Subway ordering system and being hero-worshipped by Layla's younger brother. Is this the end of everything or the start of a beautiful friendship? An outrageously funny 9+ sci-fi caper by a Bafta-winning author (out 10 July). Kill Creatures by Rory Power Last summer, Nan's three best friends were lost, presumed drowned. Their fading tourist town has been in mourning ever since. Now, a year on, one of the girls has returned – to the joy of everyone but Nan, who killed them in the first place … A tense, enthralling psychological thriller for 14+, by the author of Wilder Girls. Lady's Knight by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner Blacksmith's daughter Gwen knows how to forge a sword – and also how to swing one. When she catches the eye of Lady Isobelle, promised in marriage to the winner of the upcoming tournament, Gwen quickly becomes Sir Gawain – but what will happen when their deception is unmasked? This riotously feminist YA romp is full of heart-fluttering queer romance, bitchy knights and angry dragons. Embrace the Serpent by Sunya Mara After escaping the palace, imperial ward Saphira lies low, letting her new master take credit for her skilled jewel-smithing. When the charismatic Serpent King comes searching for a bride, Saphira strikes a dangerous deal. Trapped in a marriage of convenience, can she ever win her liberty? A wild, intricate, romantic YA fantasy. Run Away With Me by Brian Selznick, Scholastic, £19.99 In 1986, 16-year-old Danny spends the summer in Rome, falling in love for the first time with a boy called Angelo and the many layered histories of the city. Selznick's soft, shaded images and lyrical storytelling combine to create a work of dreamy, poignant beauty. To explore all the books in the Guardian's summer reading list visit Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
My perfect holiday reading, by Bernardine Evaristo, David Nicholls, Zadie Smith and more
Zadie SmithFor me summer reading is about immersion. Three novels fully absorbed me recently. Flesh by David Szalay is a very smart and stylish novel about the 1%, filtered through the life of a Hungarian bodyguard/driver in their midst. Cécé by Emmelie Prophète (out 23 September) vividly depicts the slums of contemporary Haiti via a very online young sex worker who lives her best life on Facebook. Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie features a series of unforgettable women trying to work out what love means. The summer read I'm looking forward to myself is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, a true original. David NichollsI would recommend two books, 800 pages and a shade under 150, depending on what you can carry. Helen Garner's collected diaries, How to End a Story, are frank, gripping and revealing about family, marriage and the writing life, while Anthony Shapland's debut, A Room Above a Shop, is a small, tender love story, almost a poem. Bernardine EvaristoNo Small Thing by Orlaine McDonald is one of the best debut novels I've read in recent years. A family of women, mother, daughter and granddaughter, carry unresolved and unspoken trauma that's passed down through the generations. This poisons their relationships and ability to fully function in society. Intense, visceral and beautifully written, McDonald's novel captures their damaged souls. Stag Dance by Torrey Peters is the follow-up to her bestselling novel Detransition, Baby. Consisting of three short stories and a novella, this is adventurous, mind-expanding and provocative fiction that skilfully serves up different possibilities of gender and sexuality. Yael van der WoudenThe Pretender by Jo Harkin tells the story of Lambert Simnel, the Tudor Pretender. It's funny and it's devastating. I'm having a fantastic time reading it. Katherine RundellMy favourite novel so far this year has been James by Percival Everett. It has the satirical bite of his previous work, but a furious generosity that is its own. A reimagining of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, its premise is that the language of the enslaved is a learned facade to appease the white slavers. I read Huckleberry Finn first and then James immediately afterwards: a fantastic reading experience. Olivia LaingI saved Gliff by Ali Smith for the perfect moment: the day that Keir Starmer gave his 'island of strangers' speech. What a balm and a corrective, then, to read this propulsive dystopian novel about how to refuse the imperatives of fascism, how to stay open to strangers in all their guises. Beautiful and visionary. Reading about spycops might not seem the obvious beach activity, but Disclosure by Kate Wilson is a gripping account of an environmental activist who discovered her former boyfriend was a police spy, a technique regularly used to infiltrate and discredit non-violent activists. The most invigorating aspect of this disturbing book is how the women turned the tables, piecing together evidence and eventually winning a victory in court. Jonathan CoeIf you're heading to a British seaside town this summer, the book you should take with you is Birding by Rose Ruane. Set in a desolate unnamed resort where the pastel facades of Victorian buildings 'crumble like stale cake after a party', and the pier boasts a helter skelter 'crusted with stalactites of guano', this is the bleak but hopeful story of Lydia, once one half of a fleetingly successful girl band, piecing her life back together in the face of falsely remembered trauma. Ruane is a marvellous writer whose prose glitters with perfect metaphors and wincingly caustic one-liners. In fact you should take this on holiday wherever you're going. Anne EnrightLiterary biographies are a great choice for the summer: I raced through Frances Wilson's whip-smart Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, and am currently loving An Afterlife, Francesca Wade's searching and eloquent double biography of the life and posthumous reputation of Gertrude Stein. In fiction, my big recent discovery has been the work of Samanta Schweblin. Good and Evil and Other Stories is coming out in August and they are just stellar – extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled. Also there's a backlist for me to catch up on. Time to clear a new space on my bookshelf. Samantha HarveyAbdulrazak Gurnah's Theft is complex in its themes of class and entitlement, but it's also, fundamentally, a piece of great, satisfying storytelling to lose yourself in. Katie Kitamura's latest novel, Audition, is slick, sharp, strange and singular. I love her work; she's a writer who can conjure intrigue from the scantest detail, and you'll gulp this novel down in one in-breath. Michael RosenKiku: The Japanese Art of Good Listening by Dr Haru Yamada. It's strange that when we say the word 'conversation', the first thing we think of is speakers. Yet, an equal part of conversation is listening. In fact, the speaker speaks with an eye and ear out on who the listener is and how they're reacting. This is a great insight into how all this plays out, seen through the prism of Japanese culture and language. I'd also recommend Beyond the Secret Garden: Racially Minoritised People in British Children's Books by Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O'Connor. What's it like as a child to read classic children's books if you can't see yourself in the garden? Or to only see yourself there as people who are 'less than' the great characters and heroes? Or flip that over and ask, what does all this do for those who see themselves in books as always centre stage? Colm TóibínMore than a quarter of a century ago in Sydney, I caught a glimpse across a room of the novelist Helen Garner and her companion, the novelist Murray Bail. I could hardly imagine that I would become obsessed with both of them courtesy of Garner's marvellous How to End a Story: Collected Diaries, all 800 pages of it. This diary begins by registering what is ordinary, how days are, what it is like to be a writer, a daughter, a mother, a lover, a citizen of Melbourne. Part of it is a doomed love story. So, I have also been reading some of the writings of the object of Garner's attention, three short books by Bail: Longhand: A Writer's Notebook; Notebooks 1970-2003; and his luminous and mysterious semi-novel called He. Ali SmithIt's a Muriel Spark summer for me. There's the first volume of her Letters (1944-1963) edited by Dan Gunn (out 28 August); I can't wait to read it. Brand new right now is Frances Wilson's truly amazing biography of Spark's formative years and work, Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark. An electrifying work in itself, often as mazy and gripping as a psychological thriller and as unsettling, sharp and playfully uncanny as a piece of Spark's own fiction, it's also one of the most revealing books about societal postwar paranoia and nervous fracture I've ever read. My other summer recommendation is also a touch Sparkian in a world distracted by fakery: Nell Stevens's marvel of a novel The Original, a story of creativity, legacy and real worth, is full of narrative cunning, narrative goodness. What a very good heart it has. Mick HerronIf poetry on the beach appeals – and why wouldn't it; it sounds like a cocktail – Michael Longley's Ash Keys, published shortly before his death in January, is strongly recommended. Selected volumes are intended to provoke new readings of familiar poems, and this one works superbly – I had undervalued his later verse, thinking it slight in comparison to earlier work. This proves me wrong. Abigail Dean's third novel, meanwhile, continues her winning streak, confirming her aptitude for examining the aftermath of trauma. The Death of Us, a love story interrupted by violent intrusion, is moving and deeply impressive. Curtis SittenfeldAnimal Instinct by Amy Shearn is a delicious, sexy, insightful, big-hearted joy (that, believe it or not, features both the pandemic and divorce). After her marriage ends, middle-aged Brooklyn mom-of-three Rachel Bloomstein goes on many dates with men and women, has wild yet as-responsible-as-possible sex, and works on creating an AI chatbot that will combine the best parts of all her romantic prospects. Rachel is so open, generous-hearted and funny that reading about her makes you feel like one of the friends who comes over for drinks on her balcony. Rutger BregmanBury the Chains by Adam Hochschild and Suffrage by Ellen Carol DuBois are two gripping accounts of what may be the greatest human rights movements in history: the fight to end slavery and the struggle for women's suffrage. Both are powerful reminders that real change demands extraordinary perseverance. Of the 12 founders of the British Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, only one lived to see slavery abolished across the empire. Of the 68 women at the Seneca Falls convention, just one lived to see women gain the vote – and she was too ill to cast a ballot. Their stories are a call to all of us still fighting today: for tax justice, for democracy, for an end to the moral catastrophe of factory farming, and so much more. William DalrympleFara Dabhoiwala's remarkable global history, What Is Free Speech? is ostensibly a very different book from his first, on the origins of sex, yet it shares its predecessor's wit, fluency and dazzling erudition. Constantly surprising, it reminds us quite what an innovative idea free speech was when it was first upheld as a civilised goal in the 18th century. Examining who in history could speak, and who was silenced, Dabhoiwala reminds us of the crucial relationship between speech and power. How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn is one of the most fascinating works of global history to appear for years. Incredibly wide-ranging, it connects disparate parts of the ancient world with dazzling shafts of insight and intuition, held together by vast scholarship, elegant prose and an enviable lightness of touch. It completely reframes our conception of the western classical world, allowing us to understand just how globalised and interconnected mankind has always been. Finally, Pankaj Mishra illuminates the darkest of landscapes in The World After Gaza. It is as thoughtful, scholarly and subtle as it is brave and original. By a long way the most horrifying and thought-provoking book I have read this year. Sarah PerrySarah Hall's new novel Helm (out 28 August) is incandescently good (even by her incandescent standards). It spans thousands of years up to the present day, and concerns the Helm wind, a phenomenon that blows down from a Cumbrian hilltop and wreaks mischievous havoc. There are meteorologists and stone-age women visionaries and peculiar unbiddable girls and terrifying medieval priests: it is sexy and funny and erudite and strange, and the prose is dizzyingly good. Up there with her best. I'm also looking forward to reading Mic Wright's Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn't and Why it Matters. Wright is always excoriatingly funny and righteously indignant: this promises to be all those things and more. Nussaibah YounisJen Beagin's clever, hilarious and absolutely bonkers novel Big Swiss will have you laughing out loud and questioning everything you think you know about trauma. Greta, a middle-aged woman fleeing her past, takes a job with therapist Om, transcribing his therapy sessions. But this is small town Hudson, and Greta soon bumps into voices she recognises. When she develops an obsession with Om's sardonic and larger-than-life client Big Swiss, shenanigans ensue. Stag Dance by Torrey Peters, a quartet of stories, covers utterly original ground, and will keep you captivated with its voice, energy and wit. There's a hormone-inhibiting virus forcing cis people into parity with trans people; there are two loggers in the 1900s battling for the affections of the axeman-in-chief; there's a sexually confused boarding school love story; and a trans fetishist competing for legitimacy with a trans traditionalist. And, randomly, there are a lot of pigs. Florence KnappKakigori Summer by Emily Itami follows three sisters as they briefly return to their childhood home on the Japanese coast. It's a book about belonging, often explored through language, with piercing observations around a family's shorthand, a grandmother's admonishments, and how the peculiarities of Japanese and English culture are highlighted in the words that are absent, and uniquely present, in our vocabularies. It is funny, gentle and warm, though Itami's sentences are never fluffy. And it contains one of the best descriptions of overthinking I've ever read: 'the inside of her head is like the final note of some operatic calamity vibrato-ing without end'. Peter FrankopanI greatly enjoyed Oliver Moody's Baltic: The Future of Europe, which provides revelatory coverage of a region that is not only important but looks likely to be the next arena for competition between Russia and its neighbours. Patrick McGee's Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company is terrific too – not only charting Apple's rise but also that of China's tech sector and its economy as a whole. McGee argues that Apple helped Make China Great Again. I also admired Bijan Omrani's God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England – a finely judged and beautifully written account. To explore all the books in the Guardian's summer reading list visit Delivery charges may apply.
