Gayle’s Summer Picks 2024
Selected by the Bookshop
There’s so much to look forward to in the next few months, but I’ll pick out a couple of favourites: the latest rediscovery in the Faber Editions series, Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott, in which a young New Yorker finds herself unexpectedly divorced and has to work out how to inhabit her new ‘ex-wife’ status. It feels so modern, I couldn’t believe it was originally published in 1929. A Heartburn for the Jazz Age! And The Empusium, a new book from Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, which I’m only part way through, but I’ll be honest, it had me at the subtitle: ‘A Health Resort Horror Story’. Irresistible.
Recommended by Gayle
‘Another absolute banger in the excellent Faber Editions series of rediscoveries. Ex-Wife follows Patricia, a New Yorker who unexpectedly finds herself divorced at 24, as she works out how to live and who to be in her new role of ‘ex-wife’. It’s full of dead-pan humour, and so modern I refuse to believe it was first published in 1929. A Heartburn for the Jazz Age!’
From the publisher:
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-JonesIn September 1913, Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in what is now western Poland. Every day, its…
From the publisher:
With a foreword by LAUREN GROFFCan it possibly matter that we allow two young people to imagine that they love one another when in two days’ time they will in any event be parted? It is the summer of 1851 and Charlotte Morrison…
From the publisher:
A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman’s unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mindThe…
From the publisher:
A radical history of transness in cinema, and an exploration of the political possibilities of its future.In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a joke, or viewed as threats to the normal order…
From the publisher:
Heartbreaking, charming and funny, The Pages of the Sea is a window onto the world the Windrush Generation left behind.After her mother sails from the Caribbean to England to find work, Wheeler is left with her two older sisters,…
From the publisher:
A human history told through clay, from the critically acclaimed author of The Foghorn's Lament.'Clay contains infinite possibilities in its transmutations, evidenced on the shelves of our homes, our galleries and museums. Every time…
From the publisher:
An outstanding and moving essay on the Palestinian struggle, Edward Said and the power of narrative*FROM THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF ENTER GHOST*'Recognising the Stranger combines intellectual…
From the publisher:
Translated by Caroline SchmidtWhile travelling through the Great Alföld, the vast plain in south-eastern Hungary, Esther Kinsky stops in a small town near the Romanian border. Like many other things, the cinema, ‘mozi’…
From the publisher:
With a foreword by SHEENA PATELEsther Williams is thirty and single. She lives with her grandmother in a small house and her life is one of routine and order; she takes a seaside holiday each year and every Thursday she goes to the cinema…
From the publisher:
The dazzling new short story collection from the Granta Best Young British NovelistA Granta Best Young British Novelist'A thrilling love for the stuff of language … Magical' JON McGREGOR'A visionary writer' JAN…
From the publisher:
Translated by Charlotte BarslundA groundbreaking, potent novel about the destructive force of romantic love from award-winning writer Vigdis HjorthA relatively young woman, aged thirty. She married in her early twenties, had two children.…
From the publisher:
A captivating look at what draws us to the shocks and thrills of horror, by film critic and broadcaster Bogutskaya.Zombies want brains. Vampires want blood. Cannibals want human flesh. All monsters need feeding.Horror has been…
From the publisher:
A beguiling debut novel about friendship and failure.Nicola Long is a few years out of a fine arts degree, listless and unenthusiastically employed in London. She begins to spend her hours at a small underfunded archive dedicated to…
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