Calgary Herald

10 BOOKS TO READ THIS SUMMER

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Big Summer

Jennifer Weiner, Atria Books (Fiction)

Weiner’s 14th novel takes a breezy romp through online influencer culture, levelling a withering gaze at the Instagram fake-it-till-you-make-it crowd.

The City We Became

N.K. Jemisin, Orbit (Fiction)

File this one under prescient fiction: In the Hugo Award winner’s sprawling and provocativ­e new novel, New York City and its denizens battle an alien force intent upon eradicatin­g them.

Deacon King Kong

James Mcbride, Riverhead Books (Fiction)

The U.S. National Book Award-winning author of The Good Lord Bird sets his new novel in a 1969 Brooklyn housing project, where an elderly deacon, for no discernibl­e reason, attempts to kill a local drug dealer, setting in motion several funny, chaotic stories.

Make Russia Great Again

Christophe­r Buckley, Simon & Schuster (Fiction)

If anyone can succeed at the near-impossible task of satirizing the Trump administra­tion, it’s the author of Thank You For Smoking. His next novel (available July 14) is a fictional memoir by Herb Nutterman, Donald Trump’s seventh chief of staff.

The Mirror & the Light

Hilary Mantel, Henry Holt & Co. (Fiction)

Mantel caps her Booker Prize-certified Thomas Cromwell trilogy with a masterful finale that charts the undoing of Henry VIII’S scheming right-hand man.

Pelosi

Molly Ball, Henry Holt & Co. (Non-fiction)

Underneath Ball’s smart, solid biography of the first female speaker of the U.S. House lies an important lesson: Despite our fixation on political showmanshi­p, politics works best when its practition­ers can navigate their way through the convoluted cloakrooms of power.

The Resisters

Gish Jen, Knopf (Fiction)

This dystopian novel, set in a starkly stratified version of the United States, follows a husband and wife — second-class citizens with a history of fighting their corrupt government. But what will they do when they have the opportunit­y to change their circumstan­ces, thanks to a daughter who turns out to be a baseball prodigy?

Simon the Fiddler

Paulette Jiles, William Morrow (Fiction)

Jiles follows her National Book Award finalist, News of the World, with another Civil War-era western. This one focuses on Simon, a spunky red-headed musician who is no weepy sentimenta­list. Yet when he sees Doris, a pretty Irish nanny, he can’t hold his emotions in check.

Rodham

Curtis Sittenfeld, Random House (Fiction)

After fictionali­zing the life of Laura Bush with American Wife, Sittenfeld focuses on another U.S. first lady, with a novel told from the perspectiv­e of Hillary Rodham. But in this alternate history, Hillary never marries Bill, which means her life turns out differentl­y — even if the misogyny remains the same.

Utopia Avenue

David Mitchell, Random House (Fiction)

The next novel (available July 14) from the author of Cloud Atlas and Number 9dream — both shortliste­d for the Booker Prize — follows the swift rise of a British psychedeli­c band in the late 1960s, with all the hedonism, A-list cameos and LSD you might expect.

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