Yiyun Li! Maya Binyam! Tom Wolfe! 27 books out in paperback this August.
August, astonishingly, approaches already. But if time feels like it’s moving too quickly, I have a bit of a blast from the past (and future) for you: twenty-seven books being released in paperback this August (and one from July, accidentally left off the previous list!), if you missed them in hardcover, or if you just want to pick them up again in delightful new editions.
Below, you’ll find a wide range of books, some debuts, some by established authors, in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. There are exciting novels and stories by Yiyun Li, Nicole Flattery, Maya Binyam, Michelle Porter, Jessica Knoll, Richard Mirabella, Ana Menéndez, and many others. Arthur Sze has a career-and-form-spanning collection of poetry. And, in nonfiction, there’s a cornucopia of cool things to consider, from an exploration of George Eliot’s life and marriage; a new edition of Tom Wolfe’s Gonzo classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test; Alba de Cespedes’ Elena-Ferrante-esque reflections; Prachi Gupta on living with a foot in two different cultures; and more.
If time feels fast, slow down, for a bit, with one of these scintillating choices. You won’t regret it.
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Maya Binyam, Hangman
(Picador)
“Hangman‘s narrator, who is unnamed, displays an unwillingness or inability to reconcile his memory with the present state of his country of birth….His journey chains together brutal and charming allegories that underline the farcical idiosyncrasies of life as part of a global community, of life in diaspora, jewels that eventually take the shape of a quietly powerful debut from a self-assured writer with a clear point of view.”
–The Chicago Review of Books
Nicole Flattery, Nothing Special
(Bloomsbury)
“In her début novel, Nothing Special, the Irish writer Nicole Flattery appropriates and inverts Warhol’s work of appropriation….Flattery writes with a caustic gaze, and a keen eye for how often what looks like an escape hatch is another trap….Nothing Special is a great book about Warhol, and a sneakily moving homage to human kindness, where kindness appears only in quick flashes.”
–The New Yorker
Yiyun Lee, Wednesday’s Child: Stories
(Picador)
“One of our finest practitioners of the short story form returns with a dazzling new collection….Wednesday’s Child is full of woe, but Li’s fictions are never one-note—rather, they capture the full tapestry of the human condition. Packed with extraordinary beauty and quiet devastation, these stories cut quick and deep, like a knife in the dark.”
–Esquire
Clare Carlisle, The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life
(Picador)
“A highly illuminating portrait of the acclaimed writer’s evolution as a novelist and a wife….Fans of literary history will savor this book. Carlisle’s empathetic exploration of a unique relationship provides a clear lens through which to view Eliot’s life and work.”
–Kirkus Reviews
David Shih, Chinese Prodigal: A Memoir in Eight Arguments
(Grove)
“A profoundly thoughtful, unflinchingly honest Asian American memoir….Throughout this memorable book, Shih is adept at seamlessly weaving historical events into his life story, forging thoughtful, creative connections between his evolution and that of the U.S. The result is an insightful, vulnerable, trenchant, and utterly readable story about belonging that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt that one or more of their identities sets them apart.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
(Picador)
“The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is not simply the best book on the hippies, it is the essential book…the pushing, ballooning heart of the matter….Vibrating dazzle!”
–The New York Times
Arthur Sze, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems
(Copper Canyon Press)
“A new cornerstone of the Asian American poetic canon, Arthur Sze’s career-spanning book collects early adaptations of classical Chinese poetry, his signature terrain-traversing sequences, and new work written in lines like microscope slides, long and translucent, each one isolating a single clarified perception: ‘adjusting your breath to the seasonal rhythm of grasses— // gazing into a lake on a salt flat and drinking, in reflection, the Milky Way.'”
–The Boston Globe
Michelle Porter, A Grandmother Begins the Story
(Algonquin)
“Michelle Porter’s novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story, is charged with huge blasts of imaginative force—magical in every way. In this novel, divided families come together, there are wise bison, and dogs with opinions, an Indigenous family history spanning generations. Here is heaven and then, what the rest of these vivid characters must contend with, life on earth, with all its splendor and heartbreak….Michelle Porter’s voice is unique, uber-alive, utterly gorgeous.”
–Lisa Moore
Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
(S & S/Marysue Rucci)
“On one level, Bright Young Women is a breakneck thriller based on Ted Bundy’s heinous crimes. It ties together the stories of two women with connections to the murders and their search for justice. On another, it functions as a sharp examination of our culture’s obsession with serial killers and true crime.”
–Harper’s Bazaar
Yu Miri, The End of August (trans. Morgan Giles)
(Riverhead)
“Morgan Giles’ translation of Yu Miri’s The End of August reads at a breathlessly swift pace despite, or because of, the painstakingly meticulous care put into every word and line. Yu’s rich storytelling never loses its pace as Giles relays her depiction of the resilience of the Korean nation through the tragic consequences of colonialism that reverberate to this day.”
–Anton Hur
Alba de Cespedes, Forbidden Notebook (trans. Ann Goldstein)
(Astra House)
“Forbidden Notebook‘s pace is quick, propulsive, and addictive. Intimate, smart, and smoldering, newly translated by Ann Goldstein (noted for her translations of Elena Ferrante, herself a passionate reader of de Céspedes) and introduced by Jhumpa Lahiri, Forbidden Notebook joins a global canon of work by writers such as Clarice Lispector, Colette, Jean Rhys, Margery Latimer, Mercè Rodoreda, and Mariama Bâ…capturing an almost mystical, transcendently luminous awareness.”
–The Los Angeles Review of Books
Prachi Gupta, They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us
(Crown Publishing)
“They Called Us Exceptional is a marvel: a searingly honest memoir that manages to be at once a scalding indictment, and a heartfelt love letter. In its descriptions of the struggle to live authentically across two cultures, Gupta’s book evokes W. E. B Du Bois and Maxine Hong Kingston; in its exploration of how family psychopathology and cultural history entwine themselves across generations.”
–Scott Stossel
Laura Meckler, Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equaity
(Holt)
“Laura Meckler brilliantly explores the racial history of Shaker Heights, the Cleveland suburb where she grew up, to illuminate the troubled dynamics of integration in American life. Dream Town is at once a vividly drawn portrait and a significant sociological revelation.”
–David Maraniss
David Joy, Those We Thought We Knew
(G. P. Putnam)
“Those We Thought We Knew is a screaming wound bleeding fiery poetry. This is a brilliant novel about racism, generational trauma, reckoning with the past, and the way awfulness tends to hide in the places you least expect it. A heartfelt, brutally honest portrait of the heart and roots of the North Carolina mountains that echoes the entire country. Powerful. Timely. Necessary. Read it.”
–Gabino Iglesias
Richard Mirabella, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest
(Catapult)
“Spellbinding….A skillfully crafted dual timeline narrative….Between Mirabella’s expertise on the sentence level and the love he infuses into the story—a love that explores the liminal space between tragedy and triumph—the reader is quick to trust that this journey is a necessary one. Brother & Sister Enter the Forest is haunting and gorgeous, pensively exploring memory, family, and love’s limits. It urges us to consider: how do we love someone who is not well? Where do we go when our family won’t help us?”
–BOMB
Elliot Ackerman, Halcyon
(Vintage)
“Halcyon is an entertaining thought experiment, and Ackerman writes with a gentle, graceful style….Ackerman delivers a potent critique of the what-if nature of talking about history….Ackerman, as much as any working novelist today, is invested in getting the facts of war and history right.”
–The Washington Post
Leah Redmond Chang, Young Queens: The Intertwined Lives of Catherine De’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots
(Picador)
“Young Queens is exquisitely written….Chang tells a vivid, visual, and compelling story, furnished with stirring details from the countless letters penned by and about these women. Not everyone can make such sources sing as this author does, providing not only emotional charge but subtle psychological insights into these women and the dramatic choices they made….[T]his is a masterful, compelling and significant book.”
–Joanne Paul
Nikhil Goyal, Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty
(Metropolitan Books)
“A nuanced and intimate portrayal of three Puerto Rican teens growing up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, drawing on a decade of research in the community to demonstrate how poverty is a barely surmountable obstacle for disadvantaged young people. It’s an enthralling and often maddening read.”
–Publishers Weekly
John Szwed, Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith
(Picador)
“In this vividly detailed biography, music scholar Szwed brilliantly captures the life and legacy of the enigmatic filmmaker, folklorist, painter, producer, anthropologist, archivist, Kabbalist, and alchemist Harry Smith….Drawing on extensive research to fill in his subject’s emotional states, Szwed sensitively renders [Smith’s] extraordinary, bizarre, and ultimately tragic life….A masterful ode to a ‘strange and singular character’ in American arts.”
–Publishers Weekly
Nancy Jooyoun Kim, What We Kept to Ourselves
(Atria Books)
“Nancy Jooyoun Kim has crafted a moving, propulsive story about a family haunted by secrets. What We Kept To Ourselves spans the intimately personal to the urgently political to investigate how the traumas of the past shape the human experience. This is a probing, sharp novel about family, loss, desire, grief, the search for justice, and so much more.”
–Crystal Hana Kim
Esmeralda Santiago, Las Madres
(Knopf)
“A powerful and heartbreakingly accurate portrait of those unimaginable hours and seemingly interminable days after [Hurricane Maria]….Santiago is faithful to the details, both big and small….Her book captures what it means to be a Puerto Rican amid the cycles of loss and upheaval. It also becomes a timely and important chronicle of this chapter in the U.S. territory’s history….With Las Madres, Santiago creates an indelible record of her homeland—and its resilience—during one of its toughest chapters.”
–Sandra Lilley
Victoria Kielland, My Men (trans. Damion Searls)
(Astra House)
“Based on the true story of one of America’s first female serial killers, Kielland’s dense, lyrical novel offers both insight and opacity. In 1876, seventeen-year-old Brynhild Størset is overwhelmed by her own longings and her religious-induced shame. When she becomes pregnant, an act of violence leads to a miscarriage and, from there, a miserable boat trip from Norway to the United States….A meditation on female desire, on loneliness, on mental illness.”
–Kirkus Reviews
Katie Spalding, Edison’s Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History’s Greatest Geniuses
(Back Bay Books)
“With wit and charm, each of Katie Spalding’s stories in Edison’s Ghosts nudges…thinkers right off their pedestals. Whether it was learning how Pythagorus died from an ill-timed fascination with beans, the career derailing procrastination of Leonardo Da Vinci, the truly impressive-in-its magnitude gullibility of Arthur Conan Doyle, or the failed attempt of the titular Edison to create a phone for calling ghosts, this warts-and-all review of…history’s most famous ‘geniuses’ will fuel…conversations for years.”
–David McRaney
Tim Schwab, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire
(Metropolitan)
“Tim Schwab follows the money to expose what happens when one man—however intelligent or well-intentioned—amasses so much wealth and so much power, he can literally dictate to governments around the world. With great skill—and given the range of Bill Gates’s influence, considerable courage—Schwab pulls back the curtain to deliver a classic of muckraking journalism.”
–The Nation
Ana Menéndez, The Apartment
(Counterpoint)
“Showcasing Menéndez’s signature sensuous language, dreamlike imagery, ambitious experimentation, and political awareness honed by her decades as an award-winning journalist, The Apartment is a tour de force by an author working at the peak of her powers.”
–Joy Castro
Genevieve Plunkett, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel
(Catapult)
“n the Lobby of the Dream Hotel is a spellbinding novel, alive with feeling and discovery. Plunkett orchestrates an enrapturing story of a woman and mother tethered to a reality she would rather escape with bold jumps in time, nuanced observation, and flights of imagination. A book as much about the mundanities that trap us as it is about creativity’s promise of freedom, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel is an absolutely brilliant feat.”
–Rachel Yoder
Edan Lepucki, Time’s Mouth
(Counterpoint)
“Wildly imaginative….An emotionally visceral, page-turning saga exploring motherhood, abandonment, self-invention, intergenerational trauma, cult worship, somatic therapy, and, most of all, the poignancy that even reconjured memories are forever lost once the present vanishes.”
–San Francisco Chronicle
