The books you need to add to your summer reading list
Holiday season is upon us, people! You may have packed your bags, prepped your beauty regime, snapped up a sun hat, summer dress and sandals but a holiday isn't a holiday without a good book to read on the beach.
If, like us, you find yourself browsing the aisles of WHSmith at the airport for a good last-minute book purchase and soon realise you haven't read anything new since your last mini-break, the choice can be overwhelming.
But fret not keen bookworms - we’ve rounded up some of the best summer reads for 2019, whether you’re heading off on hols to the seaside or simply enjoying the beautiful weather at home in the garden. These are the best page turners around...
Juliet The Maniac by Juliet Escoria, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Synopsis: A shockingly dark, funny, and heartbreaking portrait of a young teenager's clash with mental illness and her battle toward understanding and recovery. Ambitious, talented 14-year-old honours student Juliet is poised for success at her Southern California high school. However, she soon finds herself on an increasingly frightening spiral of drug use, self-harm, and mental illness that lands her in a remote therapeutic boarding school, where she must ultimately find the inner strength, and determination, to survive.
Almost Adults by Ali Pantony, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Synopsis: The struggle is real… ever managed to kill a succulent after just a few days? Got seven reminder letters on the kitchen table because you forgot to pay your council tax? Become a hot mess who’s falling apart because they’ve been broken up with?Nobody told Mackie, Edele, Alex and Nat (aka the MEAN Girls) that life was going to be this way. They’re busy navigating the joys of adulthood – getting their shit together, breaking up and making up, moving out and moving on. This grown up stuff is hard but at least they’ve got each other. Welcome to the world of adulting.
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Boy Erased: A Memoir by Garrard Conley
Synopsis: Acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut memoir is about coming of age and reckoning with desire as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where she found cult-like privilege, shocking racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hiding in plain sight.As a child, Madden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls.
With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai'i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It's a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.
Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously by Jessica Pan
You'll like this if you loved: Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Synopsis: What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs? Jessica Pan is going to find out.When she found herself jobless and friendless, sitting in the familiar Jess-shaped crease on her sofa, she couldn't help but wonder what life might have looked like if she had been a little more open to new experiences and new people, a little less attached to going home instead of going to the pub.
So, she made a vow: to push herself to live the life of an extrovert for a year. She wrote a list: improv, a solo holiday and... talking to strangers on the tube. She regretted it instantly.
Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come follows Jess's hilarious and painful year of misadventures in extroverting, reporting back from the frontlines for all the introverts out there.
But is life actually better or easier for the extroverts? Or is it the nightmare Jess always thought it would be?
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: The Bastard Of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Synopsis: 'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Do This For Me by Eliza Kennedy
Synopsis: In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lack-lustre freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theatre called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time, she muses. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is. Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Lost Connections by Johann Hari
Synopsis: An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the "collected schizophrenias" but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community's own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang's analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. An essay collection of undeniable power, The Collected Schizophrenias dispels misconceptions and provides insight into a condition long misunderstood.
Era of Ignition by Amber Tamblyn, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Synopsis: In her late twenties, Amber Tamblyn experienced a crisis of character while trying to break out of the confines of the acting career she'd forged as a child in order to become the writer and director she dreamed of being as an adult. After a particularly low period fuelled by rejection and disillusionment, she grabbed hold of her own destiny and entered into what she calls an Era of Ignition--namely, the time of self-reflection that follows in the wake of personal upheaval and leads to a call to action and positive change. In the process of undergoing this metaphysical metamorphosis, she realised that our country was going through an Era of Ignition of its own. She writes: "No longer stuck in a past we can't outrun and a future we must outgrow, we are a nation that is actively confronting our values and agitating for change. We are in an age when activism becomes direct action, when disagreement becomes dissension, when dissatisfaction becomes protest, when accusations become accountability, and when revolts become revolutions."Through her fierce op-eds and tireless work as one of the founders of the Time's Up organisation, Amber has emerged as a bold, outspoken, and respected advocate for women's rights. In Era of Ignition, she addresses gender inequality and the judgment paradigm, misogyny and discrimination, trauma and the veiled complexities of consent, white feminism and pay parity, reproductive rights and sexual assault - all told through the very personal lens of her own experiences, as well as those of her Sisters in Solidarity. At once an intimate meditation and public reckoning, Era of Ignition is a galvanising feminist manifesto that is required reading for everyone attempting to understand the world we live in and help change it for the better.
Elsewhere by Rosita Boland, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
Synopsis: From her first life-changing solo trip to Australia as a young graduate, Rosita Boland was enthralled by travel. In the last thirty years she has visited some of the most remote parts of the globe carrying little more than a battered rucksack and a diary.Documenting nine journeys from nine different moments in her life, Elsewhere reveals how exploring the world – and those we meet along the way – can dramatically shape the course of a person’s life. From death-defying bus journeys through Pakistan to witnessing the majestic ice-scapes of Antarctica to putting herself back together in Bali, Rosita experiences moments of profound joy and endures deep personal loss.
In a series of jaw-dropping, illuminating and sometimes heart-breaking essays, Elsewhere is a book that celebrates the life well-travelled in all its messy and wondrous glory.
The Boy in the Headlights by Samuel Bjork, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
Synopsis: Winter 1999. An old man is driving home when his headlights catch an animal on the empty road up ahead. He stamps hard on the brakes. But it is not an animal at all. It is a young boy, frightened and alone, with a set of deer antlers strapped firmly to his head. Fourteen years later, a body is found in a mountain lake. Within weeks, three people have died. Each time, the killer has left a clue, inviting Special Investigations Detectives Munch and Krüger to play a deadly game – a game they cannot possibly win. Against the most dangerous and terrifying kind of serial killer. One who chooses their victims completely at random.
Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: In The Woods by Tana French
Synopsis: Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village in North Yorkshire, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son Nathan and ageing Labrador Dido, both at the discretion of his former partner Julia. It’s a picturesque setting, but there’s something darker lurking behind the scenes.Jackson’s current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, seems straightforward, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network―and back into the path of someone from his past. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking new novel, both sharply funny and achingly sad, by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridges
Synopsis: Queenie Jenkins can't cut a break. Well, apart from the one from her long term boyfriend, Tom. That's definitely just a break though. Definitely not a break up. Then there's her boss who doesn't seem to see her and her Caribbean family who don't seem to listen (if it's not Jesus or water rates, they're not interested). She's trying to fit in two worlds that don't really understand her. It's no wonder she's struggling. She was named to be queen of everything. So why is she finding it so hard to rule her own life?Read our interview with Candice Carty-Williams.
Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Dexter
Synopsis: One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo's wife - and the only person Jessa's ever been in love with - walks out without a word. As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother's art escalates - picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose - and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
Synopsis: On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the story of a small African nation, told by a swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis.In 1904, in a smokey room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives – their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes – form a symphony about what it means to be human.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines – this novel sweeps over the years and the globe.
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Synopsis: When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it's the culmination of years of yearning to be reunited with Cicely, her oldest friend and secret love, who left home years before for the land of opportunity. Patsy's plans do not include her young daughter, Tru, whom she leaves behind in a bittersweet trail of sadness and relief. But Brooklyn is not at all what Cicely described in her letters, and to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a bathroom attendant, and ironically, as a nanny. Meanwhile, back in Jamaica, Tru struggles with her own questions of identity and sexuality, grappling every day with what it means to be abandoned by a mother who has no intention of returning.Passionate, moving, and fiercely urgent, Patsy is a haunting depiction of immigration and womanhood, and the silent threads of love stretching across years and oceans.
The Dangerous Kind by Deborah O'Connor, Amazon
You'll like this if you loved: He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly
Synopsis: We all know them. Those who exist just on the fringes of society. Who send prickles up the back of our neck. The charmers. The liars. The manipulators. Those who have the potential to go that one step too far. And then take another step.Jessamine Gooch makes a living from these people. Each week she broadcasts a radio show looking into the past lives of convicted killers; asking if there was more that could have been done to prevent their terrible crimes.
Then one day she is approached by a woman desperate to find her missing friend, Cassie, fearing her abusive husband may have taken that final deadly step. But as Jessamine delves into the months prior to Cassie's disappearance she fails to realise there is a dark figure closer to home, one that threatens the safety of her own family . . .
