The murders will keep you turning pages, but the rest will leave you with a lot to talk about over dinner. But Slimani goes further than just a slasher rehash-she uses the story of the murders as a way to investigate race, class, privilege and the creeping mania that deprivation can feed in contemporary Paris. Sam Taylor (Penguin, January 9)Īnother slim novel that packs a serious punch-this one inspired by the real-life 2012 murder of two children by their nanny, which won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt when it was originally published there in 2016. It’s one of those books you can recommend to anyone and never worry that they won’t love it. Plus, the writing is pitch-perfect: lyrical without being ornate, straightforward without being boring. So will the characters, each one more interesting than the last: the dancer in a gay bar in San Francisco, the girl magician, the military doctor, the scientist obsessed with unlocking the secret to longevity. Speaking of non-beach-appropriate topics: death! The elegant opening of Benjamin’s second novel will hook you immediately-if you don’t believe me, read it here-and the ingenious premise (four siblings, each told the day of their death by a Lower East Side psychic) will keep you reading. It’s riveting enough to keep you glued to your towel, but told in small, incisive sections that are actually perfect for dipping in and out of both book and water. Plus, at 210 pages (at least in my galley), it will fit in the smallest beach bag, and still keep you entertained for a whole day.Ĭhloe Benjamin, The Immortalists (Putnam, January 9) But where there’s belief, there’s often passion, and where there’s passion, there’s often protest, and sometimes violence, and sometimes extreme violence. There’s nothing light or beachy about the topics Kwon tackles in this great, slim new novel: it’s a book about God, after all-God and the lack of God, and what both of these conditions can do to a person. Kwon, The Incendiaries (Riverhead, July 31) There’s not much plot here, but somehow the voice Moshfegh has created is compelling enough to make you miss your subway stop-I did, twice-or, if you do take this novel to the beach, keep you resting and relaxing and turning pages obsessively until you’re burned to an absolute crisp. Like many of us, she thinks her life would be vastly improved if she could manage to chemically hibernate for a year. Even when she poops on the floor of an art gallery. It’s narrated by an arrogant, beautiful (we are constantly reminded) woman who is traditionally “unlikeable,” but is so completely out there that you can’t help but be charmed and delighted by her on every glorious deadpan page. Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Penguin Press, July 10)įirst things first: this book is very, very good. Finally, so as not to go too far off the rails, all of the books below were published this year, or will be published this summer (I wouldn’t leave those late vacationers hanging). No snobbery is meant this list is for people who want recommendations for recent books that will be engaging and exciting and readable on vacation but which have more literary value than the typical “beach read.” What does that mean, exactly? It’s like any kind of art-I know it when I see it. Luckily, there is a middle ground: great books with distinctive literary and artistic value that are also fit for the beach.īy the way: people on the internet love to caterwaul about the injustice of lists like this-the snobbery of suggesting there’s anything wrong with a regular beach read! The reverse snobbery of talking about how boring literary novels can be! The general insufficiency of book lists of any kind! Honestly, I am. As someone who has a hard time investing in a book if it doesn’t at least tick off a few literary boxes, I tend not to have much tolerance for the purely fun and easy-but I don’t want to bring Proust to the beach either. It’s already July, which means that by now you’ve probably gotten a million and one recommendations about which books you should bring to the beach (or lake or woods or park or air conditioned bedroom) this summer. But summer book recommendations in the literary and general fiction space tend to fall into two categories: Fun Easy Beach Reads!!!! and well, everything else.
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