Here’s my selection of books to take on your holidays this summer.
Samuel Fisher’s third novel takes a psychogeographic tramp across a post-apocalyptic London where the population is plagued by climate-induced migraines – post-apocalyptic but deeply familiar, in its topography, but also in its characters: a writer who stalks East London in an ‘Ancient Mariner’ cap, a mysterious graffiti artist whose tag is ‘NAT HAS HERPES’, a Haggerston bookseller named Sam 🧐
A perfect holiday read from Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller, Let the Bad Times Roll is a gripping thriller set between New Orleans and London; a feast of charbroiled oysters and sazerac cocktails, tarot readings and jazz bars, charismatic strangers and suspicious friends.
I’m also looking forward to Elaine Castillo’s latest, a wild-sounding romance set in a virtual reality workplace; and Kate Riley’s Ruth, a debut set in an anabaptist community, which comes with endorsements from Jenny Offill, Joshua Cohen and Nell Zink.
And a handful of reissues: Werner Herzog’s delirious diary of the making of Fitzcarraldo; Joe Brainard’s I Remember, a playful memoir without which Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries, Ed Atkins’s Flower and a whole host of other great books could never have existed; the latest in the Faber Editions series, The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson, a tragicomic tale of breakdown and recovery; and John Gregory Dunne’s account of his divorce-induced summer living in Las Vegas.
From the publisher:
'Migraine is a beguiling, sinuous wonder of a novel. Simultaneously a work of intimate psychogeography, and a mystery unravelling the interlacing breakdowns of climate, health and domestic coupledom, I didn't want it to end'…
From the publisher:
‘A masterpiece. One by one, the so-called important books of our time will be forgotten, but Joe Brainard’s modest little gem will endure.’ Paul AusterWith a new introduction by Olivia Laing, alongside Paul…
From the publisher:
The darkly brilliant new thriller from the author of instant Sunday Times bestseller Death of a Bookseller.Everyone knows Daniel. But no one knows where he is ...THENAlone in New Orleans, Selina is struggling to fit in until…
From the publisher:
Sometimes people just…click.‘A highly charged, passionate and tender love story. Wonderful’Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time‘Castillo is a literary firecracker… If you…
From the publisher:
For the first time in red spine, Werner Herzog's legendary document of his most infamous act: the filming of his masterpiece, FitzcarraldoA fever-dream journal documenting the making of cinema’s most infamous production, from the…
From the publisher:
This lost classic coming-of-age tale is a tragicomic portrait of one young woman’s university breakdown and recovery, introduced by Daisy Johnson.I wanted the knack of existing. I did not know the rules … I wanted to tell them…
From the publisher:
In this mesmerizing and profound novel, the arc of a woman’s life in a devout, insular community challenges our deepest assumptions about what infuses life with meaning.Ruth is raised in a snow globe of Christian communism, a world…
From the publisher:
“In the summer of my nervous breakdown, I went to live in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada.” So begins John Gregory Dunne’s neglected classic of first-person writing, a mordant, deadpan, grotesque tale that blurs the line…
Latest booklists
Latest booklists
