Best fiction: Top ten books for summer reading
Before you sit down by the pool and relax over the break, make sure you’ve got the perfect book to unwind. Check out this definitive list of what to read this summer.
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Before you sit down by the pool and relax over the break, make sure you’ve got the perfect book to unwind. From award-winning novels to long-awaited sequels and hard-boiled detectives, we’ve got the best fiction to read this summer.
1. Boy Swallows Universe (Trent Dalton)
The 2019 ABIA book of the year has quickly become an Australian classic. Based on Dalton’s own childhood, the story follows 13-year-old Eli and his mute brother August in suburban Brisbane in the 80s. While the themes are at times harrowing (Eli’s mum is a drug addict, his ‘babysitter’ is a hardened criminal), the prose has a light touch. Even though Eli has experienced some terrifying moments at a young age, he retains a powerful optimism about his future, and a curiosity that would lead him (and Dalton) to a career in journalism. Not only is it funny (Eli breaking into jail to see his mum on Christmas Day is a highlight), but it shows us the power of uncompromising love, forgiveness, and how family connection can overcome even the darkest moments.
2. The Testaments (Margaret Atwood)
The long-awaited sequel to Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian political horror The Handmaid’s Tale was released this year. The United States of America has turned into a totalitarian state by religious fundamentalists, restricting the rights of women and forcing them to bear the children for the political elite. The Testaments is set 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale, so the original novel’s protagonist, Offred, doesn’t play much of a part in this narrative. But this is still very much her story.
3. Tiamat’s Wrath (James S. A. Corey)
In the eighth instalment of the cult favourite The Expanse science fiction series, Corey takes the reader out of their comfort zone. The Expanse has now been turned into a TV series that is yet to catch up with the books and fans of the show might not recognise the brave new world (or worlds) in these pages. We’re living in the aftermath of a war that our heroes lost. And that’s just the beginning. In typical Corey style, a political upheaval has our protagonists trying to figure out how to fight an enemy which has become the new status quo.
4. Blue Moon (Lee Child)
Jack Reacher is back. The former military MP-turned vagrant vigilante can’t help but get involved in people’s problems. The man who spent his career being controlled by the Army now enjoys the freedom of being completely off the grid - owning nothing but the clothes on his back, packing only a toothbrush and constantly moving from town to town. And that’s where we meet Reacher in his 24th novel – on a Greyhound bus on its way to a nameless town. As he steps in to stop a mugging, he finds himself between a gang war between Ukrainians and Albanians. And Reacher is not the type of man to just let that happen.
5. Fleishman is in Trouble (Taffy Brodesser-Akner)
In her day job as a writer The New York Times, Brodesser-Akner is a master interviewer. (Her profile on the bizarre Goopy-news of Gwyneth Paltrow’s world is superb, as is her silent take-down of an obnoxious Bradley Cooper.)
In 2019, Brodesser-Akner made the move into fiction with her witty, oh-so-New-York debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble.
But, a word of warning, for anyone over 40 the truth about marriage and ageing, makes Fleishman Is in Trouble an at-times painful read.
The novel plumbs the depths of misery as the marital union between two university sweethearts – Toby and Rachel - disintegrates slowly, and then spectacularly, all at once.
Toby is a surgeon at a New York hospital, which screams success to most of us, but not to Rachel, an acting agent, and her uber-rich, Hamptons-holidaying friends.
Told, initially, from the point of view of Toby, we feel for the 41-year-old as he navigates Tinder and what dating even looks like post-internet. Then Rachel drops their two kids off for a weekend visit and promptly disappears.
What we soon learn is that there are indeed two sides – or two stories - to every doomed romance, and what we had taken as gospel from the seemingly downtrodden Toby might not actually be the truth. Or is it?
Brodesser-Akner has written a hugely potent novel that readers of a certain age – who’ve had any sort of romantic break-up – will recognise instantly. It’s brutal, but satisfying.
6. You Know You Want This (Kristen Roupenian)
Given the viral success of Cat Person, The New Yorker’s most-read piece of fiction for 2017, there was always going to be a lot of pressure for its author Kristen Roupenian’s debut work, which sparked a seven-figure bidding war. Thankfully, with this early 2019 release, You Know You Want This, she doesn’t disappoint. A collection of visceral short stories, it picks up where Cat Person left off, masterfully peering into private moments, internal struggles, thoughts, and desires that, as people, we are not supposed to see or bear witness to, but as readers, hold us fully captivated. From tales of a woman covered in mysterious welts, to an emotionally detached man who winds up in emergency after taking a glass to the forehead, You Know You Want This is less about sex in the modern world and more about power, and a consideration of who really has it.
7. The Best Kind of Beautiful (Frances Whiting)
Florence Saint Claire, former child star, prefers plants to people, is prickly but in her own way also charming. Albert Flowers is a people person - life rushing at him with parties and rooftop bars. Each one believes the other to be direct and uncomplicated but both are equally duplicitous. What follows are misunderstandings and missteps, and ultimately a narrative on forgiveness and family. Don’t write this off as a “chick lit” genre - there is soul and heart within the Saint Claires an almost Seinfeld-lens on suburban life. It’s been six years since Whiting wrote Walking on Trampolines and it was worth the wait. You’ll shed a tear, laugh and remember that more than anything, kindness is the best kind of beautiful.
8. The Girl Who Lived Twice (David Lagercrantz)
David Lagercrantz’s third contribution to the Millennium series is as faithful as his past two. The Swedish journalist and author takes the late Stieg Larsson’s vision to grand heights, as loveable bad-ass lead Lisbeth Sandlar plots to eliminate her traitorous twin Camilla and determined henchmen. As she moves in on her mark in Russia, the vengeful hacker is dragged into a separate, intriguing investigation with her affable, sometime lover and investigative journalist friend Mikael Blomkvist in Sweden. There are trolls, gunbattles, kidnappings, even an Everest sojourn in this rollicking thriller that will, yet again, have you on the edge of your seat. While there has been speculation the book could be the last Lagercrantz writes in the Millennium series, he has left the door wide open for more. Bring it on!
9. Nine Perfect Strangers (Liane Moriarty)
As the title suggests, Australia’s literary sweetheart Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers weaves together the stories of nine strangers who find themselves at a health retreat. It is not the best Moriarty book (What Alice Forgot takes that title) and has a slightly more murder mystery feel than her other books. But her clever and engaging writing steers you through the slightly complicated narrative maze of the nine stories, bringing it together brilliantly at the end. Worth a read.
10. The Andromeda Evolution (David H. Wilson)
Fifty years after The Andromeda Strain made the late Michael Crichton a household name — and spawned a new genre, the techno-thriller — the threat returns, in a gripping sequel. The twist? This one has been written by new author Daniel H. Wilson in a terrifyingly realistic and resonant thriller. Set five decades after a hostile microbe fell to Earth and nearly wiped out an entire town, the virus has reappeared in the Brazilian jungle. And it’s spreading rapidly. A small team is dispatched to stop the threat within five days or it will mean the end of the world.