17 books to read as summer slouches on

Deliver Me is a nasty, spiteful book that has a soft edge; a horror with heart. Dee-dee is a working-class woman in Missouri who works at a chicken-slaughtering facility, contributing to the killing of up to 40,000 chickens in a single shift. After a series of miscarriages, she becomes pregnant again and is determined to carry the child to term. Her unemployed and disinterested boyfriend, who is only referred to as Daddy, collects exotic insects and is determined to bring them into the more intimate parts of their relationship. Dee-dee has much to contend with, and that is without considering that she carries religious trauma from the Pentecostal church, and her childhood friend from this setting has reappeared after 20 years. The various strands of Deliver Me are nicely woven together, bringing out themes of motherhood, yearning, jealousy, the meat industry and American-made religion. There is an emotional depth to Nash’s novel that does not take away from, but rather adds to, the horror that lies at its centre. (JW)

It’s Sally Rooney’s world and we’re just living in it. Rooney’s readers were given a pleasant surprise earlier in the year when Faber announced that the Irish writer’s fourth novel is forthcoming -- and long-time fans will not be disappointed. Intermezzo centres on Ivan and Peter Koubek, two brothers living in Dublin with very little else in common. They are both dealing with the recent loss of their father as they carry on with their seemingly successful careers in chess (Ivan) and human rights law (Peter). Rooney’s latest offering is an astonishingly nuanced look at the kinds of relationships we build and the expectations that we place on them when everything seems to be going wrong. Intermezzo is a mature novel from a writer who has already shown great maturity. Checkmate. (JW) 

If the Euros have got you hungry for some football-related reading, there is no better place to start than Peace’s latest offering. The novelist has formerly delved into sports storytelling with his novels Red or Dead and The Damned Utd., both of which gained much critical and commercial acclaim. Munichs tells an important piece of footballing history in its depiction of the 1958 Munich air crash, which killed and injured the majority of people on board. The passengers were the Manchester United team, their management and several sports journalists, and the event caused unprecedented issues in both English and international sport. Munichs delves into the emotional turmoil that the deaths and injuries caused the families of the passengers, football fans and those who survived. It’s a novel about sport, friendship, fandom and Britain itself. (JW)

Watson’s second novel is a tightly-controlled, invigorating novel that delves into the intricacies of familial relationships that have previously been broken, seemingly for good. Rosa has not spoken to her brother in six years, and has spent that time trying to forget the relationship they had and the type of person that he was. That is, until, he shows up again, and she must face the reality of their shared situation. Watson’s style was established with her debut little scratch and is both continued and developed in I Will Crash -- her words are carefully curated and arranged on the page in order for the reader to inhabit the narrator’s headspace. This is particularly effective in the presentation of a fractured bond and the impact this has on the individual psyche. (JW)

Tawada, whose novels such as The Last Children of Tokyo and Scattered All Over the Earth have established her as a literary powerhouse, is newly-translated with this latest offering. Spontaneous Acts is a reflection on the pandemic lockdown, and how people rebuilt their lives in its aftermath. Patrik, who refers to himself as “the patient”, is overwhelmed by the newly-opened world, and is even finding it difficult to return to his beloved opera-houses. It is in a new-found relationship with a stranger, Leo-Eric Fu, that he begins to put himself together again, despite the odds stacked against him. This slim novel is a beautiful reflection on nationality, friendship and the value of art. (JW)

One of the twentieth century’s most masterful prose writers has been reissued by the ever-dependable Fitzcarraldo Editions in their publication of Janet Frame’s third novel, The Edge of the Alphabet. The protagonist is Toby Withers, a man from Frame’s native New Zealand, who sails to England after the death of his mother. During the journey, he befriends a middle-aged woman and an Irishman, and they bond over their feelings of isolation and alienation. Frame delves into the inner-lives of three very different people, while masterfully assessing their relationships with larger outside elements like colonialism and the urban experience.

Aside from being incredibly funny, poignant, horny and compelling, never have I known any book precipitate so many demi-breakdowns as Miranda July’s second novel, All Fours. The story follows the narrator’s proposed cross-country US road trip which takes an unexpected turn when an unlikely romance lures her off course. Since its recent release, I’ve been deluged by messages from friends (mostly women) all similarly lured of course by the tale, each independently wrestling the profound self-revelations it’s provoked. Give Miranda July a Nobel Prize for literature. (ED)

Untold Lessons has already made waves in Italy and last year it was nominated for the country’s most prestigious literary prize, the Premio Strega. Foulston’s excellent translation brings Tanet’s debut to an English-speaking audience, something that we should all be grateful for. This is a mournful, tense novel about the death of a young student in a small Italian Alpine village, and the events that unravel in its aftermath. A teacher goes missing and the search through the surrounding woodlands unearths feelings and situations that some feel would be better hidden. This is an intense literary thriller that subverts expectations by allowing its victims to have complexity and agency, forcing us to ask whether it’s a good idea to pry into the inner-lives of those who do socially taboo things.

What begins as a strained email to a lettings agent descends (or ascends) into a harrowing, hilarious and poetic soliloquy about sexual initiation, concepts of home and property, and the precarity of being a tenant during the housing crisis. Goodlord, the debut novel by poet and artist Ella Frears, is a lyrical and compelling tale in which the narrator oscillates between passivity and rage as she navigates her own desires and the desires of others inflicted upon her. (ED)

In Private Rites, Julia Armfield’s second novel, the apocalypse is nigh. In this dystopian rendering of Britain, it rains incessantly: anemones grow along grouting, trains have been replaced by ferries, houses are routinely swallowed up by the water. When sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes are tasked with organising their father’s funeral, there is no question that he’ll be cremated – because “there’s no way to bury a body in earth which is flooded”. Private Rites follows the three women as they simultaneously reckon with their Lear-like father’s death and the stark reality of the world rapidly ending around them. (SS)

Juli Min’s debut novel Shanghailanders is told in reverse, ticking backwards from 2040 to 2014. The story centres around the cosmopolitan, wealthy Yang family, which comprises husband and wife Leo and Eko and their three daughters Yumi, Yoko, and Kiko. Min tells the Yangs’ story via vivid vignettes of each family member’s life, plus illuminating perspectives from other characters in their orbit, such as their nanny and chauffeur. A colourful and ambitious novel, Shanghailanders deftly unpacks the meaning of family and belonging. (SS)

Evenings and Weekends is kind of staggering as a debut novel. Everything about it feels so rich and alive – from its sensual descriptions of London in the summertime, to its propulsive plot, to its lovable, intricately woven characters. I was so enamoured with them all, so invested in where they would end up, that I ended up reading this in two sittings (others I know said the same thing). Oisín McKenna is easily one of the most exciting new voices in literature, with such a deep and compassionate understanding of people and the complex desires that drive them. There’s a reason we called this our book of the summer a few weeks ago. (DS)

I first came across Erik Davis’ writing a few years back with his cult book Techgnosis about the history of networked spirituality – I consider it my personal bible. Then came 2019’s High Weirdness, an equally mesmerising text all about navigating our current age of hyper-mediated reality. The newly released Blotter arrives at a time when everyday existence has never felt more psychedelic, and the future – shaped by technologies such as AI – feels deeply weird. It chronicles the history of LSD blotter paper, which has roots in the psychedelic underground of the 1970 and 80s. A must-read for fledgling psychonauts and Davis stans alike. (GY)

Trading stages for pages, and spray cans for paperbacks, TERRESTRIAL marks the return of an iconic collaboration between UK hip hop legend Ed Scissor and artist Will Barras. Ed’s infamously surreal lyricism finds a new home in stuttering poetry and Will’s ghoulish world of lined-out silhouettes. Featuring meditations of the banal and terrestrial without the ‘extra’, it’s a double-glazed window into suburban life. (SPM)

Written after Rose – a hugely influential author and philosopher – had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Love’s Work is both a memoir and mediation on a series of themes, including illness, death, Jewishness, and the nature of love. With her treatment of this last subject, Rose is unsentimental and almost coldly analytical (there are no soppy platitudes or feel-good affirmations), but I found the book genuinely romantic, even life-affirming.

I first encountered the book – first published in 1995 and recently reissued by Penguin Modern Classics with a beautiful new cover – in an article written by my friend, who had quoted the line: “There is no democracy in any love relation: only mercy.” That sentence blew my mind – maybe I was going through it myself at the time, I can’t remember, but it seemed to capture something simple but profound about the inescapable vulnerability of any relationship: you can’t demand that someone continues to love you; none of us have the power to protect ourselves from heartbreak. It wasn’t long before I stole that quote for an article of my own, and when I finally got around to reading the book in its entirety, it was exactly as wise, sharp and poignant as I had hoped. (JG)

Cuckoo is the second novel by horror author Gretchen Felker-Martin (who was recently interviewed by Dazed), and it is a rollicking ride. It follows a group of trans and queer teenagers who are kidnapped - at the behest of their parents - and taken to a conversion therapy camp in the middle of Utah, where something even creepier than the Religious Right is lurking in the desert… 

While the novel reminded me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Stephen King’s It, it’s unmistakably contemporary – it feels like a response to the current moment, when the anti-LGBTQ+ movement is experiencing a global resurgence and conversion therapy, far from being eradicated, is still a matter of debate. It’s scary, violent, and there’s a sense of righteous anger pulsing through it, but it is also funny, and its depiction of blossoming friendship among a group of queer outcasts is even quite sweet. Cuckoo might be too fucked up to make for a relaxing beach read (unless you are a twisted FREAK like me 😈), but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t hold your attention. (JG)