Summer reading roundup
I read a lot (A LOT) of books. Here's an entirely personal list of the ones I think are worth your case space
IF YOU ONLY TAKE THREE
Strong Roots, Olia Hercules
Sometimes you come across a book and you just know you’re onto something special. Strong Roots is that book. A history of Ukraine and its relationship with Russia through a century in the life of one family (that of cook and food writer Olia Hercules), and the food and stories they passed down. It is utterly transporting, a much-needed history lesson in human form and an instant classic. The hardback has beautiful end papers, too.
• Strong Roots is out 19 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Treasures, Harriet Evans
Harriet Evans has always been fulsome in her praise for Elizabeth Jane Howard’s classic Cazalet Chronicles and that passion is evident in spades in The Treasures, book one of Harriet’s new Sevenstones trilogy that spans one family, three generations and fifty years. The story of Alice and Tom takes us from postwar London to 1960s Manhattan to the magical house in Wiltshire, Sevenstones. If you love a sweeping big house family saga (and who doesn’t?) this has your name on it.
• The Treasures is out 12 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Bombshell, Darrow Farr
No summer reading pile is complete without sex, violence, glamour and an exotic location or three. Throw in multi-layered (occasionally enfuriating) characters and a harsh political awakening and you have The Bombshell. The year is 1993 and the place is Corsica. Severine is a spoiled French teenager about to get a wake up call when she is kidnapped as she cycles to her parents’ villa. If Taylor Jenkins’ Reid (Daisy Jones and the Six, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Atmosphere, all excellent beach reads btw) tackled the abduction of Patty Hearst, you might well end up with something as glitzy and propulsive as this.
• The Bombshell is out 5 June in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
MIDLIFE(ISH) MEMOIRS
The Dry Season, Melissa Febos
When she emerged from a gruelling two year relationship in her mid-thirties,
• The Dry Season is out 5 June in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself, Glynnis MacNichol
Sick of hearing that life was going to be downhill all the way from 40,
• I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself was published in the US last year. It’s out 3 July in paperback in the UK. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
How To Lose Your Mother, Molly Jong Fast
If you thought your mother-daughter relationship was tricksy, spare a thought for Molly Jong Fast, the daughter of Erica Jong, author of the seminal 70s novel Fear of Flying, a reluctant feminist icon more often seen as an answer in a crossword puzzle than across the kitchen table. Imagine growing up as a cypher for peoples’ parasocial relationships with your controversial mother (even before that was a thing) and, then, imagine that you start to lose the mother you never really had to dementia. Coming in at a painfully funny, heart-rending 190 pages, I’ll be surprised if this isn’t another classic.
• How To Lose Your Mother is out 26 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
THRILLERS
El Dorado Drive, Megan Abbott
I’m a die-hard Megan Abbott fan, not least because every single book she writes takes you into a different world whilst maintaining the edge of your seat suspense she majors in. Sisters Pam, Debra and Harper grew up in Detroit when the city was boom. Now it’s bust and, in their 40s, so are their lives. Broke and bored, the sisters get embroiled in an all-women group that promises wealth and financial security forever… Yep, it can only go one way. El Dorado Drive goes straight to the heart of our contemporary preoccupations – class, wealth, greed and the collapse of capitalism and the American dream. All the small stuff then.
• El Dorado Drive is out 8 July in hardback, 24 June in kindle. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Good Liar, Denise Mina
Another writer who just keeps getting better, Denise Mina never shies away from a moral quandary. A year ago, blood spatter expert Dr Claudia O’Sheil gave the evidence that put a killer in a high profile case behind bars. But since then, Claudia has learnt a horrific truth – her evidence was flawed. Does she stay quiet and protect the livelihood she’s worked so hard to build? Or does she tell the truth, that the real killer is still out there. And they are very close to home. The Good Liar is an intricate, morally knotty and caustically funny dissection of class, privilege and the lengths people will go to to protect it.
• The Good Liar is out 31 July in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
Don’t Let Him In, Lisa Jewell
If you are one of the millions who already know and love Lisa Jewell’s fiendishly clever, deeply disquieting thrillers, I don’t need to say anything else, other than get your preorder in. If you don’t, get on the train with this tale of duplicity, gaslighting and one of the most unsettling characters I’ve encountered in a really long time. Then layer on extra SPFs because you’ll be glued to your sunbed.
• Don’t Let Him In is out 3 July in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Book Game, Frances Wise
Combining a big house, academic rivalries, a literary retreat, old ‘friends’, family secrets, infidelity, unrequited love, the dissatisfactions of a long marriage and a sprinkling of Me Too. Phew. Only ageing narcissist, Lawrence, knows what’s really going on. Will he finally get his comeuppance? Heaven.
• The Book Game is out 5 June in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
IMMERSIVE HUMAN STORIES
Dream State, Eric Puchner
Sunbeds are made for epic sagas and here’s another, very different, one. Set in a fictionalised Montana, this is the story of Cece, Charles and Garret, friends, lovers and a love triangle that upends all their lives. Ranging from 2004 to 50 years hence, (when the climate really is in trouble) this is not so much a story of lost loves (although there is that) but a coming of old age tale of choices, consequences and repercussions, for both our lead characters and their children. In a way it reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver’s classic Demon Copperhead, not because of the story but because of the layered, old school, deeply satisfying way Puchner tells it.
• Dream State is out now in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong
Nineteen year old college drop-out Hai is standing on a bridge in small town Connecticut, preparing to jump. On the other side waits Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian widow. She calls him to her. And instead of jumping he takes another kind of leap entirely. Grazina is 82, suffering from dementia. Before long, Hai is her proxy grandson/carer. It is a relationship that will change both their lives. Part poem, part page-turner, this is a real heartbreaker.
• The Emperor of Gladness is out now in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
A Beautiful Family, Jennifer Trevelyan
If you’re looking for a sun-soaked atmospheric mystery, put this in your case. 1980s New Zealand and 10-year-old Alix finds herself unusually free this summer. Her parents are preoccupied, her teenage sister is doing what teenagers do and Alix is alone. Until she meets Kahu who lets her into a secret. A few years ago a little girl went missing and she was never found. Suddenly Alix has something to do this summer…
• A Beautiful Family is out 19 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
The Names, Florence Knapp
What, exactly, is in a name, and how can being given a different one at birth change the trajectory of our lives? So meet our hero, Bear (named by his sister). Or Julian (chosen by his mother, Cora). Or Gordon (named for his father). As we follow him across three timelines and three entirely different lives, all dependent on a decision made in a moment by his mother, Cora, when she registers his birth. This is an utter original. Expect to see it on a lot of loungers this summer.
• The Names is out now in hardback. Buy it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
HORROR / FANTASY
One Yellow Eye, Leigh Radford
The country is in the grip of a zombie pandemic (stay with me!) when Tim is one of the last to be bitten. Grief-stricken, his scientist wife Kesta spends her evenings in group therapy with others who’ve been bereaved. Only she hasn’t. Because Tim is still alive and tied to the bed in the spare room while she frantically hunts down a cure. This pitch black bleakly funny debut about love, grief and zombies might be my personal favourite on this list, but then I do love horror.
• One Yellow Eye is out 17 July in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil, VE Schwab
OK, moving on from zombies, how about some vampires? In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to take control of her life. In 1827, Charlotte is sent to live with an aunt in London when she tries to kiss her best friend. In Boston 2019 Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight and desperate to drink blood. All three women grow fangs, but what links them?
• Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil is out 10 June in hardback. Preorder it from amazon, The Shift bookshop on bookshop.org, or your local indie.
• What’s on your summer reading list? I’d love your recommendations.
* A note: this post contains affiliate links, which means that a very small percentage of any sale goes to help fund The Shift. If it’s orange (or underlined if you’re reading in the app), it links! (But not all orange/underlined links are affiliates…)
So many books to add to my tbr. And thank you so much for including The Names. Florence x
Love Beth's created with HI illustration, will be sharing far and wide.....I've seen the first Terminator!