selection of authors…
jennifer egan
run and hide by pankaj mishra (hutchinson heinemann)
This novel is a penetrating and deeply moving account of a young man’s rise from poverty to high-tech globalized prosperity in the new India. Opening as the protagonist, Arun, escapes the misery and brutality of his childhood home to go to college, the novel follows him and his equally struggling friends through varied and troubled adult ages that reveal the hidden costs of ” success”. mishra is an excellent journalist, and the sensory vitality of his second novel is a reminder that fiction is the best compressor of information. Unleashed in the realm of human feeling, Mishra’s keen powers of observation are spectacularly alive.
You are reading: Best summer reading books
Elizabeth day
patrick radden keefe’s empire of pain (picador)
I first read patrick radden keefe in the new yorker, then graduated to his first nonfiction book, Say Nothing: An Extraordinary Retelling of Troubles. i grew up in derry and that book gave me a whole new view of what i experienced as a child. Now he’s become one of those authors I’ll always read, no matter what the subject, which is why I devoured Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Raider Dynasty despite only having a vague notion of who the raiders were. In this book, Radden Keefe not only delves into a fascinating (and dysfunctional) family history, but also charts the course of America’s opioid epidemic. he has this knack for picking out individual incidents that illuminate the whole story, like striking a match in a cave. although the subject is complex and difficult to handle, he never feels that way. a masterclass in compelling nonfiction storytelling.
peters tower
the queens of sarmiento park by camila sosa villada (virago)
this is a book that is both fierce and magical, the story of a boarding house for trans sex workers who discover and raise a baby in córdoba, argentina. it is a transition in a long tradition of Latin American literature: full of wonder, humor, political criticism and narratives that move from the macro to the micro in the course of a paragraph. and yet, despite its place and culture specificity, it is one of the books that best illustrates the themes uniting a growing movement of global trans literature, a book that unflinchingly asks, “how do we live?”
geoff stainer
fearlessly embrace barry lopez’s world on fire (random house us)
barry lopez, one of america’s greatest nature writers, died in 2020. hug without fear is a posthumous collection of essays, so far published only in the united states, that revisits places and themes familiar to book fans previous ones, like crossing open country and the Arctic dreams. reading it-the constant and inconspicuous attention to everyday life in extraordinary places (and vice versa)-is always a pleasure, but here, at the end of his life, he forces himself to confront one of the reasons for the long life of him sense of solace offered by the depopulated world: the devastating experience, as a child, of falling prey to a family friend and a serial pedophile.
monica ali
scary monsters by michelle de kretser (atlantic)
scary monsters is a diptych novel with a “reversible” format, which means that one half is printed upside down, so you have to decide which half to read first: the one set in 1980s france, in the that lili, a young australian, tries to imitate simone de beauvoir; or the one set in the australia of the near future, in which permanent fire zones have been declared as ever closer edges of climate catastrophe. However you read it, this is a brilliantly intelligent novel about racism, misogyny, and ageism. de kretser dissects the barely hidden misogyny and racism of then, to awaken our senses to the now, unsettling and disturbing our sense of where we are headed, what kind of future we might be sleepwalking into.
mick herron
a murder in november by simon mason (riverrun)
this is the story of two wilkins, ray and ryan; they’re both in oxford, the former an uptight balliol graduate (is there any other guy?), the latter a working class single dad with a chip on both shoulders, a wacky temper and unerring instincts when it comes to detective work . The odd couple scenario is familiar enough, but Mason avoids the obvious tropes and focuses rather poignantly on Ryan’s relationship with her young son. well crafted, too. he is the first in a series – start now and avoid the rush.
nina stibbe
fight night by miriam toews (faber)
A chaotic and energetic family of three (almost four) prepare for a big change in this heartwarming and funny novel that falls somewhere between Lucy Ellmann and Patricia Lockwood. the narrator, a 100-month-old swiv, comments on her life with a pregnant mother and grandmother through an ongoing stream of consciousness letter to her absent father. there are sharp dialogues, comic details, tragic and gloriously dark (how to dig a grave in winter), beautiful meditations on life (somewhat absurd and wise at the same time), boredom with the world and the most sublime language but, above all, you face to the immeasurable joy of family love even in the saddest moments. Wonderful books like this don’t come around very often. I loved it.
charlotte mendelson
little things like these by claire keegan (faber)
I love fiction where small pressures build up to derailment, for better or worse: a late start, a wrong turn. In this beautiful, fierce, and humane novel, Bill Furlong, a coal trader, is a decent man in recession-pressed 1980s Ireland. he wants his daughters to go to the only good local girls’ school, run by the nuns on the hill, who also have a training school (or is it a laundry?), which he rarely talks about. But bill, conscientiously delivering fuel for Christmas, finds something in the convent coal bunker. he should ignore it, for everyone’s sake. but he can’t. And neither should we.
red raisins
evie wyld’s rock bass (jonathan cape)
It is no small thing to create a novel of such subtlety and hope that it opens with a body in a suitcase. bass rock deviates from time to unite the lives of three women in three different centuries, following the invisible paths of desire and persecution, sexist violence, family and the aspiration for a better future. Images of rock bass in the news recently, amid concerns for its bird population, have brought to mind the living spectacle of rock, serving as a poignant reminder of the novel’s themes of generational unity, precariousness , constancy.
irenosen okojie
palmares de gayl jones (virago)
This daring, multifaceted novel set in 17th-century Brazil tells a sprawling story about a community of Africans who escaped slavery. We follow her narrator, Almeyda, from childhood in the 1670s on a Brazilian plantation with her enslaved mother and her Arabic-speaking witch grandmother. ella almeyda embraces her kaleidoscopic existence with vigor and imagination, extracting and observing the movements of the various characters around her to make sense of her world. I love the novel for its scope, its singular vision, its play with form, as well as the complexity of its female characters. marks the return of a lesser-known literary giant. Discovered by none other than Toni Morrison, Jones retired from the publishing world after a few acclaimed novels. I’m delighted that he’s back with this bold and imaginative feat.
johnny holes
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When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (Hamish Hamilton)
A book set in a graveyard might not sound like much fun for a summer read, but When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo juggles a lot of contradictory elements, and you’ll want to spend time wherever it takes you. Written in a bland vernacular, it is a haunting and evocative portrait of the heady streets of Trinidad and the bard that connects the everyday with the spirit world. Because the novel’s darkness is textured and poignant, there’s something oddly comforting about its tone, full as it is of murky sunsets, flawed loves, and struggling characters you’re always rooting for.
kamila shamsie
the return of faraz ali by aamina ahmad (riverhead)
This is an impressive debut novel: a noir-inspired thriller that intertwines with politics, family ties, corruption, and murder, while also addressing different kinds of power, particularly as it relates to power. refers to women. It begins in the old city of Lahore with men who come to take a boy out of the world of courtesans into which he was born; jumps forward in just a few pages to the boy turned police officer and sent by his powerful father back to the world of courtesans to investigate a murder. aren’t you already trapped?
maggie shipyard
san x by alexis schaitkin (pan macmillan)
Though suspenseful, Alexis Schaitkin’s novel Saint X is less about the mysterious death of a beautiful young woman than its subsequent devastating ripple effect. Narrator Claire is seven years old when Ella’s sister Alison Ella disappears on a family vacation on the fictional Caribbean island of the book’s title. Two days later, Alison’s body is washed. Eighteen years later, Claire is living in New York when she meets one of the men accused of Alison’s murder. I read Santo X in one night, captivated by the mystery of it but also by the clever and evocative way Schaitkin writes about race, loss, and place.
miriam toews
he held the radical light of christian wiman (farrar, straus and giroux us)
This is a book that I have kept close to me for the last few years written by Christian Wiman, an American poet. his exploration of poetry, spirituality and mortality has given me much comfort and inspiration. the book’s subtitle, “the art of faith, the faith of art,” sums it up nicely. poetry is the grace we strive for but fail to embody. art is the true mediator between earth and heaven, not just any religious official. faith is essential for any artist. but why do we want to make art? the book came to me from another poet, matthew tierney, who also lives in toronto, and it has a line that is the beginning of a response: “freed from the desire to fly, i flew”.
alex wheat
the saint of lost things by tish delaney (cornerstone)
I was looking forward to reading the sequel to tish delaney’s excellent debut novel, before my heart broke. Once again, the Saint of Lost Things begins in rural Northern Ireland, and the narrative revolves around the lives, dramas, and dark family secrets of an aunt and her niece who live in a cottage near a small town. Delaney has a natural ability to unlock the fabric and nuance of working-class family life. very absorbing, she did not let me down.
Critics’ Choice…
rachel cooke
the real and the romantic of frances spalding (thames and hudson)
It’s not very easy to pack, but I’m hoping I’ll somehow manage to pack Frances Spalding’s new great history of interwar English art into my luggage. As I turn its delightful pages, I already know that the joy and intense interest of this book will come courtesy of the attention given by its erudite but always readable author to lesser-known names, Gerald Brockhurst, Winifred Knights, and Algernon Newton duly taking their place. Along with the Nash brothers, Barbara Hepworth and Graham Sutherland. What could be better when lying poolside than gazing at a haunting etching of the priceless fl griggs? a clear portrait of that teacher, meredith frampton?
vladimir de julia may jonas (picador)
Having grown up with college novels, I am the son of a fun and playful academic, always on the lookout for good new novels, even now. For this reason, I read this first Julia May Jonas novel even before it was published in Britain (I commissioned an American edition), and found it so exciting I might as well give it a second chance before the summer is out. A quick recap: A professor whose husband, also a professor, is accused of bad things (think #metoo crimes) does some pretty bad things herself as a horrified, disgusted-looking campus looks on. sexy, satirical, and incredibly gripping, this somehow all too believable novel is impossible to put down.
alison de lizzy stewart (serpent tail)
Graphic novels don’t usually last long enough to be perfect holiday reading, but I’m determined to read this upcoming book while I’m away. I loved Stewart’s latest book, a collection of stories called Not What You Thought It Would Be, and I hope this full graphic novel is just as good (Tessa Hadley already described it as “subtly and delightfully complicated”). . Set in the late 1970s, it tells the story of newlywed Alison, whose life changes after an encounter with an older artist. But will bohemian romance lead to lasting love or just patchouli-scented disappointment? stewart has considerable talent and i can’t wait to find out what he does with this timeless story.
the last days of roger federer by geoff dyer (canongate)
geoff dyer is the closest thing I have to a literary crush; I get too excited every time I’m in her presence, book-wise. I gather that some of the reviews of his latest book, an exploration of midlife achievement, have been somewhat discouraging, but honestly, I don’t give a damn. pearls before swine, and all that. dyer is a writer who can do anything interesting and fun, and for such unique reasons too (it’s the sheer geoff-ness of geoff that we fans of him adore). friedrich nietzsche, jmw turner, john coltrane, jean rhys: they all appear in this rare treatise, though of course it also includes characteristic scenes from dyer’s much less celebrated (although not by me) artistic life. a huge pleasure in prospect.
very cold people by sarah manguso (picador)
In general, I’m suspicious of what I consider “fragmented” books, that is, those light and thorny novels in which the narrative breaks into pieces, each paragraph floating on the page. But I’ll make an exception for Sarah Manguso’s debut novel, whose reviews have made it sound, to put it mildly, right up my street. Set in Brahmana New England, it is narrated by Ruth, a girl who is completely surrounded, it seems, by people whose battered and beleaguered hearts have long been frozen against the world. From what I can gather, manguso’s intermittent narrative is based on frigid weather, which will also work well if my vacation coincides with another heat wave.
alex preston
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the perfect golden circle of benjamin myers (bloomsbury)
Unknowingly, I had been looking for a book that would give me the same visceral, iconoclastic thrill that I got from Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem. Ben Myers’ seventh novel, The Perfect Golden Circle, is. A study in male friendship and British identity, this fictionalized account of the pranksters who fooled a nation with their crop circles is a warm, funny and moving read. You’ll never forget the time you spend in the company of Calvert and Redbone, the eccentrics at the heart of the novel.
ali smith (hamish hamilton) companion piece
the end of smith’s season quartet left a void in the literary world. I hadn’t realized how much I had relied on these rapidly published, visionary messages of the present to help shape my vision of the political moment. True to form, Smith exceeded expectations and has published a fifth book to accompany his quartet, a book that vibrates with the same rage and artistic energy as his predecessors. here we have sandy, an artist, who receives a call from an old friend in the middle of the confinement that sets off a wild series of events. Taking into account covid and the black plague, gender identity and violence against women, it is another superlative novel from one of our best writers.
the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw (pushkin press)
a wonderful book whose joyous, riotous, and intertwined stories combine to paint a picture of a group of women torn between the demands of their religion and the impulses of their bodies. philyaw finds beauty in unexpected places, elevating everyday experience to something almost sacred. is from a completely different world, but I was repeatedly reminded of mrs. Woolf’s Dalloway: Philyaw’s great triumph is allowing her characters to fully inhabit her rich and unique inner lives. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies has been a surprise best-seller in the United States; It should have the same success on this side of the Atlantic.
hannah bourne-taylor rookie (aurum)
When Bourne-Taylor suddenly finds herself transplanted to Ghana (her husband takes a job at a sports academy there), she begins to question her place in the world. she is lonely, dependent and bored. then something falls, almost literally, into her lap: a baby bird, which she raises and then lets go. h is for falcon trailed a series of similar narratives behind it in which the authors found solace in nature, but few of them are as clever, poetic, and moving as this one.
invisible child by andrea elliott (cornerstone)
When the invisible boy won the pulitzer prize, I punched the air. A work of devastating power, it tells the story of Dasani, a young woman growing up in extreme poverty in New York. Dasani is a whirlwind of a young woman, roaring from the projects that threaten to suck her back in. Elliott spent nearly a decade following Dasani and her family, and the book is a work of great moral and ethical power: there is nothing voyeuristic here, just an extraordinary portrait of the human spirit under pressure.
kaddish morris
the love songs of web du bois de honorée fanonne jeffers (harpercollins)
This 800-page book is a sweeping epic that traces the history of an African-American family over several centuries. it jumps back and forth between eras, from slavery to the antebellum South to the present day, and it does so in a way that makes it every bit as exciting as a murder mystery. The book’s main character, Ailey, is smart and insightful, and it’s rewarding to watch her grow from a distraught little girl to a talented investigator. Stories of female characters like Aggie, an enslaved woman trying to overthrow the sadistic man who bought her from Africa, create a landscape of formidable women who show how determination can change the course of history.
victory quiet adukwei bulley (faber)
This first collection of poetry is full of thoughtful narratives. each poem is thoughtful and distills the intimacies of the black girl/womanhood with compelling imagery, compelling observations, and a nomadic sense of questioning, while honoring the concept of silence and the ways it plays out in one’s inner life. these delicate poems reveal encounters with loved ones, friends, and animals (there’s a beautiful poem about snails) and also focus firmly on the rest of the world, with poems like pandemic vs black people written in the sharpest of tongues.
find me and I will go: stories of john edgar wideman (canongate)
These short stories are the ones that stay with you; wideman displays an experimental literary style that forces you to pause on every sentence. with emotional precision and bold storytelling, they heavily cover the African-American experience. there is a letter addressed to the narrator’s son, who has been accused of murder. there is another about two chickens crossing the street, reflecting on the meaning of captivity. Wideman’s stories are concerned with how incarceration and the criminal justice system shape lives and how these experiences can warp time. His short stories are not easy to read, but they are extremely absorbing, with a wideman stream-of-consciousness style that evokes emotion and empathy.
Out of the Sun: Essays at the Crossroads of the Race by Esi Edugyan (Snake Tail)
edugyan has written a remarkable series of essays like no other. This is a deeply curious book that delves into representations of black people in Western art, studying the fine details of paintings such as David Martin’s portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Johann Gottfried Haid’s painting of the Viennese courtier Angelo Soliman. edugyan oscillates between the past and the present, moving from the atrocities of the slave trade in canada to recent debates about “transracialism”. She also writes from a subjective and personal perspective, telling intriguing stories about how her parents met, her journey as a writer, and her belief in ghosts.
A Brief History of British Black Art by Rianna Jade Parker (Tate Publishing)
This book by the brilliant critic and curator Rianna Jade Parker explores the fundamental contributions that artists of African and Caribbean descent have made to the art scene in Britain. Although it is a quick read, it is abundant in the number of artists and stories that she analyzes, which will be unknown to many. Concise biographies of Frank Bowling, Anthea Hamilton, Denzil Forrester, and Maxine Walters offer insight into their lives and practices, and in her introduction, Ella Parker touches on the social and political realities affecting black cultural production. she also writes about how and why black British artists “have long been relegated to a niche” and notes that the unhistoricized Caribbean artists’ movement of the 1960s was a point of genesis for contemporary black British art. /p>
To explore all of the books on the Guardians and Observers Summer Reading Lists, visit guardianbookshop.com. shipping charges may apply.
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