Novel Escapes

Summer book releases so hot that you’ll be happy to cool down with them

Parakeet by Marie-Helene

Bertino While the pandemic has us thinking of loved ones – those we’re separated from temporarily and those lost forever – Bertino introduces us to a bride-to-be whose dead grandmother returns to her as the eponymous bird, pushing her to rekindle broken familial connections and reflect on her own existence.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. by Joyce Carol Oates No 2020 summer reading list is complete without this entry from one of our most celebrated modern scribes who, at 81, presents an 800-page tome about the familial fallout after the death of a wealthy patriarch at the hands of the local police.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett The author of the 2016 bestseller The Mothers returns with one of 2020’s most anticipated reads – a decadespanning tale about twin AfricanAmerican sisters who run away as teens, with one ending up a single mother in Louisiana while the other passes as a white woman in California.

A Star Is Bored by Byron Lane

Lane, a former personal assistant to Carrie Fisher, brings readers beyond the red carpet in this comedic story of a man struggling to sort out his own life who lands a job working as an assistant for a Hollywood legend – a tale the publisher says is “influenced” by Lane’s time with the Star Wars actress.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell The Cloud Atlas author’s first novel in five years transports readers back to the sex, drugs and revolution of the psychedelic ’60s in a tale of the rise and fall of a fictional rock band.

Antkind by Charlie Kaufman The first novel from the Oscar-winning screenwriter (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) follows a failed film critic who views a previously unknown masterpiece that took its director 90 years to complete. When the film is destroyed, the critic attempts to reconstruct it for the world to see.