Books are good for the soul. So are holidays. Put the two together, add a cocktail, and – we’re serious – you are getting close to the state of nirvana.
Now that the sunny season is upon us, we’ve been looking dreamily at the books we’re desperate to get stuck into this summer.
Read on for the top picks from the Indy’s Culture team. You don’t have to be on a sun-lounger to enjoy them. (But it does help.)
Lapvona – Ottessa Moshfegh
If Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You? was the trendy summer read of last year, Lapvona is the it-girl book of 2022. For those familiar with Ottessa Moshfegh, her latest novel is a curveball. The Boston-born author – whose writing has become synonymous with ‘unlikeable’ female characters, as loath as she is to embrace the term, and millennial ennui – instead finds her protagonist in Marek, an impoverished God-fearing son of a shepherd in a medieval fiefdom. When a tragedy unfolds, Marek’s life is turned upside down. That’s all I’ll say about the plot. Moshfegh’s prose is expectedly unexpected, following trajectories that are often shocking but never random. Lapvona is an interrogation of faith, greed, and abuse – yet Moshfegh’s dark humour cackles right through it. The novel’s epigraph – “I feel stupid when I pray” – is a lyric from a Demi Lovato song. Enough said. Annabel Nugent
The Crane Wife – CJ Hauser
“Excuse me but I did NOT give CJ Hauser permission to write about my interior life in this way.” That was one of the many responses to “The Crane Wife”, CJ Hauser’s 2019 viral essay about calling off her wedding. Hauser, the author of two novels, has now followed it up with her first non-fiction collection. Like its title essay, The Crane Wife is full of essays you’ll want to read and re-read and then send to your friends. They’re funny and sad – sometimes both at the same time – and traverse wide subject matter, from gender identity to death. Warning: you will WhatsApp multiple quotes to your friends from your sun-lounger. Jessie Thompson
Honey and Spice – Bolu Babalola
If you’ve heard of Bolu Babalola, you’re probably well aware of her deep appreciation for all things romance. From her illuminating Twitter takes on relationships in pop culture to her bestselling short story collection Love in Colour, Babalola’s authority on love stories is well-established – so the release of her first full-length novel has been hotly anticipated, and for good reason. Reese Witherspoon is already a fan – it’s just been chosen as July pick for her book club. Set among the social circle of Black university students, Honey and Spice includes a combination of two classic rom-com tropes: the enemies-to-lovers arc and the good ol’ fake-dating-to-real-feelings storyline. From the first page, there are zingers aplenty; you instantly feel safe in the knowledge that the rest will take you on a journey that’s equal parts sweet and hot. Fitting, really. Nicole Vassell
Liarmouth – John Waters
After half a century of making exuberantly transgressive movies such as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Cry Baby, queer icon John Waters has finally turned his hand to novel writing. It feels like a natural next step for the creator of so many eminently quotable scripts, because as Waters pointed out to The Independent recently: “All the movies are fiction”. Liarmouth, which he bills as a “feel-bad romance”, tells the tale of Marsha Sprinkle, a woman who steals suitcases from airport carousels. It’s just as deliciously witty and delightfully deviant as you’d expect from the man William Burroughs called the “Pope of Trash”. Kevin EP Perry
Tracy Flick Can’t Win – Tom Perrotta
It’s been nearly 25 years since the publication of Election, Tom Perrotta’s rompy novel of a student council vote gone haywire. Even if you didn’t read it, you probably recall Reese Witherspoon’s iconic portrayal of Tracy Flick, the uppity, blonde-bobbed high schooler from the 1999 movie adaptation co-starring Matthew Broderick. In this darkly satirical follow-up, Tracy is once again navigating high school politics, this time as an administrator rather than a student. But the end result is more than a pat re-tread of Election. Perrotta turns what could be a stale workplace novel into a deeper reflection on the ways adults never really grow up. Amanda Whiting
I’m A Fan – Sheena Patel
Scores of people who you a) truly respect and b) have really nice clothes that you’d like to steal start recommending, in unison, a book on Instagram. Surely you have found your perfect summer read. Sheena Patel’s debut novel is that very book. A member of poetry collective 4 Brown Girls Who Write – who last year supported indie duo Sleaford Mods on tour – 30-year-old Patel has called I’m A Fan “an imagined act of revenge verging on performance art”. If that sounds a bit intense, that’s because it is. Bring on the beach breakdowns! Leonie Cooper
The Quickening – Talulah Riley
For fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, this is a must. Talulah Riley’s second novel is about a terrifying dystopian matriarchy where women are in power and men are second-class citizens. London looks very different – for example, St Paul’s Cathedral is now an all-female spa where women can “free bleed” on their period and its dome has a golden teat like a “beautiful blond breast”. Men are tortured, castrated, and kept like trophy wives in marital homes. Riley who is also an actor, rose to fame in St Trinian’s and is playing Vivienne Westwood in Danny Boyle’s Pistol about the Sex Pistols on Disney Plus, is also famous for being Elon Musk’s ex-wife. Her latest gripping novel follows on from her 2016 debut Acts of Love. Charlotte Cripps
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
There’s feverish excitement about Gabrielle Zevin’s novel, which is already in development as a major film. As kids, Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987 and bond over video games. They meet again by chance eight years later, and this time they don’t play the games – they begin to make them, together. It’s the go-to for your next hit of Nineties nostalgia; if you ever spent too long playing Donkey Kong, this one’s for you. JT
Nightcrawling – Leila Mottley
Very few people get to release their debut novel at the age of 19; in June, Leila Mottley joined this club as her gripping tale of greed, gentrification and corruption hit the shelves. The story is told through the eyes of 17-year-old Kiara, who is battling to raise her younger brother after addiction and prison has left them without adult supervision. One night, Kiara becomes privy to something that will become a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department. Inspired by a real story from Mottley’s neighbourhood, Nightcrawling is one of the year’s most buzzed-about releases and will surely be the first step in a long career for the author. NV
Home/Land – Rebecca Mead
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead chose to pack up the American home she shared with her husband and teenage son and return to England – the home she left right after she graduated from university. Unfortunately, she arrives just before Covid-19 does. Drawing on reportage as well as the author’s own journey, Home/Land is a thoughtful memoir about moving to New York City as a young person and establishing a new life in London as an adult. But what stays with you is Mead’s careful exploration of her own complicated feelings, and the slow, bittersweet realisation that the life she’s loved for so long no longer suits her. AW
My Fourth Time, We Drowned – Sally Hayden
In August 2018, Irish journalist Sally Hayden received a Facebook message. “Hi sister Sally, we need your help,” it began. “We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story.” My Fourth Time We Drowned is Hayden’s staggering account of what happened next, as she uncovers the stories of refugees who have been enslaved, trafficked and tortured before being incarcerated as a direct result of European policy. Sally Rooney called the book “the most important work of contemporary reporting I have ever read”, and it should be considered essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the reality of migration in 2022. KP
Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black – Cookie Mueller
First published in 1990 – a year after Mueller’s death from AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 40 – this collection of hilarious and terrifying missives from a life less ordinary have recently been republished. God knows what took indie publishing house Semiotext(e) so long. An actor, writer, go-go dancer, agony aunt, drug dealer, raconteur and, as the blurb puts it neatly, “a female adventurer”, Mueller was also a muse to filmmaker John Waters, who makes regular appearances in this unfiltered ride through a run of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s counter cultures, as does his best friend, drag superstar, Divine. The real star, however, is the irrepressible Cookie. LC
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emezi
Five years after the sudden death of her partner, Feyi is pushed back out on the dating scene at the will of her best friend Joy. And though she’s not looking to commit to anything serious, she finds a quick connection at a rooftop party that kickstarts a new era of her life. There’s a swanky trip. Important work connections. And, a chance at love with a guy who seems perfect. It’s a pity, then, that she’s also undeniably drawn to his dad, every time they’re around one another. Akwaeke Emezi is known for their vivid and passionate writing – so this tale of loss, love and choices is a guaranteed summer page-turner. NV
Living On A Thin Line – Dave Davies
Dave Davies’s place in rock history has been assured ever since he took a razor blade to his own speaker cone to conjure the distorted riff of The Kinks’ seminal 1964 hit “You Really Got Me”. His forthcoming memoir promises to shine a light on his fractious relationship with brother and Kinks co-founder Ray as well as reflecting on recovering from the stroke Davies suffered in 2013, his past relationships with men and women and his lifelong fascination with the occult. KP
The Whalebone Theatre – Joanna Quinn
Joanna Quinn’s rich debut has been compared to The Cazalet Chronicles and I Capture the Castle. That alone should be enough to send most people running to the bookshop. Plenty already have, in fact: The Whalebone Theatre went straight into the Sunday Times Bestseller list. Not long after the First World War, a whale washes up on the beach by the Seagraves’ family pile in Dorset; 12-year-old Cristabel stakes a claim on it and decides to turn its bones into a theatre. Except, of course, another war is coming and everything will change. In classic English Country House novel style, it focuses on the younger generation amidst a backdrop of scandalous adult misbehaviour. This is a chunky novel to get lost in, full of pacy plotting and luscious language. JT
The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach – Sarah Stodola
Sarah Stodola traces the history of beach resort culture from its early days in Monte Carlo and Waikiki to the present, including the travel industry’s impact on local economies and the environment via overdevelopment. She weaves those stories with her own personal love of the beach, a fascination that saw her through a bad break-up in her twenties and implicates her in the story she’s telling. Plus, Stodola can be cuttingly funny. “People love the Hamptons, but I’ve never heard anyone refer to them as paradise,” she writes of New York’s tiny beach communities. “They don’t even have palm trees there.” AW
This is Not a Pity Memoir – Abi Morgan
There is not a trace of self-pity in Abi Morgan’s heartbreaking memoir. This is despite the fact it covers a three-year period of her life when her husband was hospitalised with a brain injury that meant he forgot who she was, and she got breast cancer. The screenwriter of The Iron Lady and the BBC One hit The Split is now over the crisis – or crises – but she takes you back on the emotional rollercoaster of a journey with her. The book is full of humour and rolls along at a rate of knots. Page by page, it’s full of urgency and pathos, written in a staggeringly frank, intimate voice. CC
Diary of a Void – Emi Yagi
How’s this for a feminist protest: a young woman working in an otherwise all-male office is sick of doing everyone’s washing up. She’s expected, by default, to do the menial tasks – so one day she tells her co-workers that she’s pregnant. Except, of course, she isn’t. Emi Yagi is the latest star of Japanese fiction set to be big here – she won the Osamu Dazai Prize, Japan’s award for outstanding debut novels, for Diary of a Void. Its subversive premise makes it one of the most intriguing new novels of the summer. JT
