I don’t know about you, but when it’s as hot as it’s been this week, all I want to do is stay inside in the air conditioning with a good book (assuming escaping to a lovely beach isn’t an option). If reading sounds good to you too, you might find some good titles in either our New and Noteworthy or Current Literature collections.
- The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee. From a writer praised by Junot Díaz as “the fire, in my opinion, and the light,” a mesmerizing novel that follows one woman’s rise from circus rider to courtesan to world-renowned diva . You can read a NYT review here.
- Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton. Do you enjoy historical fiction? Then you might like this dramatization of the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when “being a writer” was not an option open to women.
- The Fugitives by Christopher Sorrentino, a National Book Award finalist. He has written a book that is a bracing, kaleidoscopic look at love and obsession, loyalty and betrayal, race and identity, compulsion and free.
- The Girls: A Novel by Emma Cline is a not to be missed New York Times Bestseller. This debut novel about the Manson family murders has had a lot of good reviews, such as this, this, and this.
- The After Party by Anton DiSclafani. Looking for more of a traditional beach read? The check out the book O Magazine describes as “One of the 3 Beach Reads You Won’t Be Able to Put Down.” This is the story of 1950s Texas socialites and the one irresistible, controversial woman at the bright, hot center of it all.